Haiti Health

Very busy, but very productive days in Haiti. With the arrival of Dr. Visani last weekend, our surgical suite has been running full blast. This involves seeing at least 50 patients a day for surgical consults, then scheduling the appropriate ones for their surgery. In my free time, I also keep the OR supplied with all of the medications, instruments, and supplies needed for the many cases Sandro is doing. When needed, I also go in to the OR and act as First Assistant on cases where he needs an extra set of hands. Very cool, but very time consuming with everything else going on. It was hilarious the first time Sandro sent Joseph the translator out to tell me "Randy,Dr. Sandro needs an extra set of hands". The look on Joseph's face told me that he had no idea how we were going to literally make that happen!

In addition to our busy surgery days, one of our hospital doctors is currently out on medical leave. This means that during the night, our on-call doctor is many miles away. As a result, 4 or 5 times a night I get a knock on my door and hear "Randy, l'hopital", meaning there is a patient the nurses need help with. Typically it is an uncomplicated delivery, but way too often it is a critically ill patient needing transport to a larger hospital. This is when I get to put on my ambulance driver name tag. A lot of those trips this week. Fortunately, the Haitian doctor's maternity leave, unknowingly, coincided with my visit here. She is scheduled to return before I leave. I love seeing God take care of things like this.

The hemophilia program is ready to get started in a big way. We have over 10 patients identified at this point. We are currently submitting proposals for the funding of this program to pharmaceutical companies, as the scope and costs for this program are much greater than our current fund raising can support.

I met with the staff at the Shada clinic last week. They are willing to continue working in the clinic for free for a couple of months with the agreement that I will try and raise the support to pay them in addition to Dr. Jeanty when I return home the end of the month.

A common view out my exam room door

One of the most faith inspiring aspects of working in Haiti is watching how God opens the right doors and constantly demonstrates His power. We have had several patients needing surgeries for things that outside of Dr. Visani's scope of expertise. I got an email from a General Surgeon I met at the MMI meeting in August yesterday telling me that she had found a very cheap plane ticket, and would like to come to Haiti on the 20th and help until the end of the month. Problem solved in a way that only God could solve it.

Peace and grace,
Randy