Medical Clinic

So, what does a medical clinic look like- Haitian style?

The work begins in the US, collecting medicine (antibiotics, antifungals, parasite meds, vitamins, creams, etc.) and medical supplies (bandages, sutures, syringes, thermometers, etc.). Once we've begged, borrowed & bartered anything "medical" we can get our hands on, the team is packed up (duffle bags & foot lockers) and head south.

After unpacking supplies have to be sorted and medicine pre-packaged & labeled. The morning of the clinic, we load all the supplies in the truck to transport from the orphanage to the church pavilion, where the clinic is held.

Patients are already gathering as the clinic is set up and preparations made. We give out numbers to try and maintain order (and an attempt is made to limit the number of patients seen in a day to 125- ha! ha!).

It's not easy to get anything done with kids attached to your legs!

1st, Marie Joe registered families taking names, ages & gender info and giving each family a number. Whole families came pouring in to get an opportunity to talk to and be seen by a doctor or nurse.

Then patients would find a seat and wait to be called by our "nursing assitants".

Miss Eleanor helped Marie Joe maintain an orderly registration desk & keep patients in line... and took everyone's temp & weight.

Next Pastor Glenn was in charge of blood pressure. He was able to tell hundreds of people about Jesus love for them while he had them "on a leash". Nothing like a captive audience!

Then it was return to your seat and wait some more! We had a video of Jesus life playing, but over and over we would hear catchy music playing and find someone had switched to Lion King.
The wait was long and the patients were uncomfortable, so Klay helped maintain order. And Klay is always good for a little entertainment, anyway.
When caught up with taking blood pressure, Pastor Glenn would sit and chat with the patients as they waited.

Finally, they would be called in to see the professionals. Nurse Jana saw adults, older children and those needing wound care, while Dr. Mike saw moms & babies, and any really serious illnesses. Charlene helped Nurse Jana with translating whenever there was no adult translator around.
It took a team for each family, Doctor or Nurse, translator, someone to help hold the children, more people to help understand & explain what was going on, and runners to fetch stuff for the ''medical staff".
Karin helped keep everyone supplied, checking in with Doctor & Nurse to offer assistance, running back & forth to the Orphanage for more meds & supplies and helping out in the "pharmacy" packaging meds.
Finally, after patients were diagnosed, they were given a small slip of paper to take to another room and receive the medication they needed. Pat & Pat worked tirelessly to fill these "prescriptions" for a long, long line of now worn out patients. Micheline and Melina helped out by writing Creole instructions on baggies of medicine and explaining to each one how the medicine should be taken.
Rusty was kept busy driving from town to village finding those medicines that we ran out of or just didn't know we would need. He was able to get most of what we needed - it's amazing that you can just walk in and ask for a prescription drug and if they have it (usually something similar, under a different name from some foreign country) just hand over the money and walk out the door with it!

It was an exhausting and rewarding experience. We saw more than 300 families over the 2 1/2 days of clinic...some simple, not serious things like coughs, colds & fevers... and some very serious like deep untreated and infected wounds and burns, severe malnutrition, and even a little girl with spina bifida.

We can't say thank you enough for everyone who made this medical clinic, and smaller ones we've had in the past, possible. From all those who pitched in to help on-site, to those who gave money, medicine, and supplies, to those who helped with packing & organizing, we are so very grateful. We hope to be able to do similar clinics often and even one day have a working clinic on-site to serve these who have no where else to turn.