Days 7 and 8: L'Hopital Bernard Mevs, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
April/21/2012 06:01 PM
We started our day extra early, as we had learned from one of our favorite translators, Saul, that he doubled as a minister and led a morning prayer service at 6:30 M-F. We came to know of this as Saul could be Barry White's brother with this deep, soulful voice. We would hear him singing from time to time and in talking he mentioned his role as minister. Saul is an exceptional translator.
A moment to digress about the translation process. It is not uncommon to tell the translator something fairly important and have the translator go back and forth between the patient, having a five minute conversation about your question, and then look at you and say "the patient says no". We are never quite sure what is being discussed and how much liberty the translator takes in doing their own interpretation of your request. Saul is one of the only ones who we feel truly translates what we say!
It was a beautiful service to listen to as prayer and singing is so much a part of the Haitian culture. In fact, it is very common to hear Haitian staff humming and singing throughout the work day. They are very comfortable singing and when something dire is happening around the triage area or ER, it is not unusual to hear people break out in song to pray away the illnesses they are faced with.
The clinic patients who start lining up in the early early hours of the morning are let into the gates to get their number and then service starts at 6:30 am. After this we had breakfast on the roof where I was able to get some good video of the main street outside our hospital coming to life. School children walking with each other – different uniforms identify which school they attend – all of them immaculately dressed, and again we wonder, how do the mothers manage this? No running water or electricity and yet cotton clothing stain-free and wrinkle-free????
After breakfast (protein bar and Susanne's wonderful Via coffee, we go over to clinic. As it turns out, the rehab tech who has been running clinic this week, is not feeling well and is leaving to go home. Finally, we have the opportunity to run the joint. One problem – How to communicate? Enter Ilinie. Our hearts were lifted today by a woman named Ilinie.
She was born without a right leg (some genetic thing which runs a few generations within her family) and walks with a prosthesis which took me several minutes to hone in on. She told me she literally hopped on one leg without crutches up until age seven, when she was sent to the states to live from age 7-14. She was fitted with a prosthesis, returned to Haiti and has been trained as a rehab tech who spends most of her time in the prosthetics lab. Words cannot begin to describe how this woman made our day in the clinic effortless. She was part of the "tag team" and never indicated for one minute that she was tired. She anticipated our every thought and translated with the emotion we wished to impart on patients. In chatting with her, I learned that it takes her 2.5 hours each way to get to work. Can you imagine? She has been given a new role which begins today (Saturday) — The sewing project. There are sewing machines which have been donated for the quads and para's so that they can be taught a trade to earn money for their families. She will be in charge of this. And what an inspiration with her above-knee prosthesis.
Our time in the clinic on Friday was lots of fun. Nick was awesome taking over patients once Susanne or I did the assessments. We saw 21 rehab and 18 ortho patients and that was just by mid-day.
Susanne has now decided to switch gears and become a pediatric therapist. She worked her way with this adorable two-year old who had a thumb contracture which needed serious mobilization. Once the dad felt ok stepping out for a minute, the little guy, Blane, became entertained by a stuffed animal Susanne was using to distract him. This, along with her singing (off-key), provided enough distraction to allow her to do her thing.
Nick was really happy to see the patient he got to manipulate, show up for clinic to get follow-up PT. You never know if people will show up as they come from hours away on Tap Tap buses and nothing is predictable.
After clinic, we went to spinal cord, pedi, med/surg and ICU. Susanne and I got to freshen up skills with swallow evals. There were two evals needed (thankfully an OT was there to help get us started). Susanne told me about a man who needed an eval because his tongue was adhered to the roof of his mouth. Now I thought this was a gross exaggeration until I got my tongue depressor in there with a flashlight and gross is an understatement 1000 fold. I'll leave it at that…
Jean Eddy is getting stronger by the day. Doing independent transfers and able to actually do crunch ball tosses clearing six inches from the mat. I am so happy for him. It was very hard to say goodbye to him. Unclear what the future holds for him but he has been a model of perseverance and commitment and an absolute delight to work with.
I got to go into the OR to observe umbilical hernia surgery. Actually it was the ortho side of it as the little girl I wrote about earlier had septic arthritis at seven weeks and had fixed knees at 90°. So, as you can see, the days just go on and on here. They are so long that it is hard to keep track of all that went on.
We had lots of laughs last night at the UN and then back in bunk #1. First we snuck Jerry into our bunk for a shower. Major rule infraction. When we returned from tucking the little guy in, we came back to our bunk and everyone was laughing so hard, we asked them to repeat the story… Kenny, the MD, decided to play a joke on two nurses he has worked closely with from our team. A man had come in with severe congestive heart failure and let's just that his fluids backed up in a big way in a place in his body that has room to expand. He had the largest scrotum anyone there had ever seen. Kenny decided to tell the nurses that they needed to keep track of the diameter of his scrotum, so they took pain staking effort to get a tape measure (paper which tore and needed to be taped back together again) and not only measure his size, but chart it. Maybe it is because we are all so delirious and tired by now, but even as I write this we are laughing out loud in the airport catching a few eyes.
Saying goodbye in Haiti is not easy. We have made many friends with the staff, families and patients. We had great pleasure in personally handing out all of our towels, sheets, scrubs and all of the food we brought with us. Talk about appreciation for the small stuff. Our bags are practically weightless and we only wish we could have brought down more to give away. I do have Ilinie's address and will try writing to her and sending her small packages. Once I know that she is actually receiving what is being sent, we can begin to do monthly packages.
We had hoped the woman from the orphanage would have shown up before we needed to leave for the airport. This was not the case and saying goodbye to Jerry tore a few more pieces out of our hearts. For living on the streets, this boy is polite, respectful, well-mannered and we are really hoping for a miracle that he will find his way to a good home. The team we came with, having been strangers at the start, were an amazing group of caring caregivers. We have worked really hard and really well together and maybe, who knows, we will meet again. (OK, I admit I have taken the responsibility to put another trip together with this team sometime next year). Weird thing about Haiti... It gets under your skin.
Thats all for this trip. With love,
Susanne, Nick and Jennifer
A moment to digress about the translation process. It is not uncommon to tell the translator something fairly important and have the translator go back and forth between the patient, having a five minute conversation about your question, and then look at you and say "the patient says no". We are never quite sure what is being discussed and how much liberty the translator takes in doing their own interpretation of your request. Saul is one of the only ones who we feel truly translates what we say!
It was a beautiful service to listen to as prayer and singing is so much a part of the Haitian culture. In fact, it is very common to hear Haitian staff humming and singing throughout the work day. They are very comfortable singing and when something dire is happening around the triage area or ER, it is not unusual to hear people break out in song to pray away the illnesses they are faced with.
The clinic patients who start lining up in the early early hours of the morning are let into the gates to get their number and then service starts at 6:30 am. After this we had breakfast on the roof where I was able to get some good video of the main street outside our hospital coming to life. School children walking with each other – different uniforms identify which school they attend – all of them immaculately dressed, and again we wonder, how do the mothers manage this? No running water or electricity and yet cotton clothing stain-free and wrinkle-free????
She was born without a right leg (some genetic thing which runs a few generations within her family) and walks with a prosthesis which took me several minutes to hone in on. She told me she literally hopped on one leg without crutches up until age seven, when she was sent to the states to live from age 7-14. She was fitted with a prosthesis, returned to Haiti and has been trained as a rehab tech who spends most of her time in the prosthetics lab. Words cannot begin to describe how this woman made our day in the clinic effortless. She was part of the "tag team" and never indicated for one minute that she was tired. She anticipated our every thought and translated with the emotion we wished to impart on patients. In chatting with her, I learned that it takes her 2.5 hours each way to get to work. Can you imagine? She has been given a new role which begins today (Saturday) — The sewing project. There are sewing machines which have been donated for the quads and para's so that they can be taught a trade to earn money for their families. She will be in charge of this. And what an inspiration with her above-knee prosthesis.
Our time in the clinic on Friday was lots of fun. Nick was awesome taking over patients once Susanne or I did the assessments. We saw 21 rehab and 18 ortho patients and that was just by mid-day.
Susanne has now decided to switch gears and become a pediatric therapist. She worked her way with this adorable two-year old who had a thumb contracture which needed serious mobilization. Once the dad felt ok stepping out for a minute, the little guy, Blane, became entertained by a stuffed animal Susanne was using to distract him. This, along with her singing (off-key), provided enough distraction to allow her to do her thing.
Nick was really happy to see the patient he got to manipulate, show up for clinic to get follow-up PT. You never know if people will show up as they come from hours away on Tap Tap buses and nothing is predictable.
After clinic, we went to spinal cord, pedi, med/surg and ICU. Susanne and I got to freshen up skills with swallow evals. There were two evals needed (thankfully an OT was there to help get us started). Susanne told me about a man who needed an eval because his tongue was adhered to the roof of his mouth. Now I thought this was a gross exaggeration until I got my tongue depressor in there with a flashlight and gross is an understatement 1000 fold. I'll leave it at that…
Jean Eddy is getting stronger by the day. Doing independent transfers and able to actually do crunch ball tosses clearing six inches from the mat. I am so happy for him. It was very hard to say goodbye to him. Unclear what the future holds for him but he has been a model of perseverance and commitment and an absolute delight to work with.
I got to go into the OR to observe umbilical hernia surgery. Actually it was the ortho side of it as the little girl I wrote about earlier had septic arthritis at seven weeks and had fixed knees at 90°. So, as you can see, the days just go on and on here. They are so long that it is hard to keep track of all that went on.
We had lots of laughs last night at the UN and then back in bunk #1. First we snuck Jerry into our bunk for a shower. Major rule infraction. When we returned from tucking the little guy in, we came back to our bunk and everyone was laughing so hard, we asked them to repeat the story… Kenny, the MD, decided to play a joke on two nurses he has worked closely with from our team. A man had come in with severe congestive heart failure and let's just that his fluids backed up in a big way in a place in his body that has room to expand. He had the largest scrotum anyone there had ever seen. Kenny decided to tell the nurses that they needed to keep track of the diameter of his scrotum, so they took pain staking effort to get a tape measure (paper which tore and needed to be taped back together again) and not only measure his size, but chart it. Maybe it is because we are all so delirious and tired by now, but even as I write this we are laughing out loud in the airport catching a few eyes.
Saying goodbye in Haiti is not easy. We have made many friends with the staff, families and patients. We had great pleasure in personally handing out all of our towels, sheets, scrubs and all of the food we brought with us. Talk about appreciation for the small stuff. Our bags are practically weightless and we only wish we could have brought down more to give away. I do have Ilinie's address and will try writing to her and sending her small packages. Once I know that she is actually receiving what is being sent, we can begin to do monthly packages.
We had hoped the woman from the orphanage would have shown up before we needed to leave for the airport. This was not the case and saying goodbye to Jerry tore a few more pieces out of our hearts. For living on the streets, this boy is polite, respectful, well-mannered and we are really hoping for a miracle that he will find his way to a good home. The team we came with, having been strangers at the start, were an amazing group of caring caregivers. We have worked really hard and really well together and maybe, who knows, we will meet again. (OK, I admit I have taken the responsibility to put another trip together with this team sometime next year). Weird thing about Haiti... It gets under your skin.
Thats all for this trip. With love,
Susanne, Nick and Jennifer
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