How do you say "intern" in Creole?

Not only do we have great interns rockin' it at the HFHF mothership in Raleigh, but we also have three lucky interns spending their summer on a beautiful Caribbean island in the sun (or at least that's how we like to describe it in our recruiting materials. ;)). John, Peter and Emily are spending the summer down in Haiti and will be assisting with our medical projects in Zorange and the surrounding areas; we have no doubt their expertise will be invaluable to strengthening HFHF's work in this area. We know they're going to have the adventure of a lifetime, as they brave a summer full of river showers, constant sweat, sleeping in cots and extreme farmer tans, where Chaco tan lines are how you earn your stripes (literally). But we also know that despite the warnings about "don't fall in love at the Haitian shore" ;), they're going to come back with amazing memories, awesome relationships and with that bug that keeps people going back to Haiti over and over. Take a few minutes to get to know our brave jetsetters!

Name: John French

Internship Focus: Medical

University and status: University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, rising senior

Major: Biology

In His Own Words: I have been interested in pursuing a career in medicine since I first started college three years ago. As a volunteer in the hospital, I was invigorated by interacting with the medical staff and serving the needs of the patients. Various classes sparked my interest in international medicine. Several months ago I started looking for an opportunity to travel abroad and gain experience with international medicine. I came across HFHF's website and I was very impressed with what they were doing in Haiti, and I became eager to get in on the action! I am really looking forward to working with the Haitian medical team, conducting health-based research, and getting to know the local community. I am excited to have the opportunity to take part in this life changing experience and support the vision of HFHF!

Name: Peter Helvie

Focus: Medical

University/Status: graduated from UNC, class of 2011

Major: Biology, Italian

In His Own Words: I heard about HFHF through my friend John French and immediately jumped at the opportunity to make the trip to Zorange and work at the medical clinic. I am pursuing a career in medicine, so there was a natural interest on my part to work in a medical clinic under such extreme conditions (compared to what I'm used to in Chapel Hill). After learning more about HFHF, I became even more interested and excited to get involved. One of my favorite parts about HFHF's work and one of the things that most excites me is that everything is run by Haitians. It is wonderful to see a country in dire need of help taking steps towards bettering their situation from the inside. In a country with medical technology and expertise so far behind the United States, it is very encouraging to hear about a Haitian program which utilizes the medical knowledge of more fortunate and prosperous countries to create a clinic based on modern medicine. I am very excited to do my little part this summer, and I'm just as excited to learn about the incredible people I will meet and what they are doing to improve their situation.

Name: Emily Richey

Internship Focus: Medical

University/Status: graduated from East Carolina University

Major: Sports Medicine and Health Education

In Her Own Words: I'm a North Carolina Teaching Fellow but towards the end of my undergraduate career I knew that my calling was medicine; my true passion in life is healthcare. My plan was to immediately attack grad school and blow up with success, but I felt an unexplainable tug telling me it wasn't going to work out that way. It immediately became clear to me that my ‘perfect’ plans were peanuts compared to the amazing opportunities that God has for me. I had a friend do some medical work in Africa, and his testimony immediately made me fall in love with the idea of international medicine. I feel a strong calling to the exchange of information between countries when it comes to health care. The same friend recommended the AWESOME book "Mountains Beyond Mountains", and after reading it, my heart was completely captured by the selfless lifestyle of the Paul Farmer. It seemed like divine intervention when a girlfriend told me about her interest with the HFHF medical trips soon after I completed the book and recommended that I look into them for some experience before applying to P.A. school later this summer. Lots of prayers and chats with God have instilled a truly exuberant attitude about this summer!

We got to Port au Prince safely, but one of our checked bags didn't make it. It's the bag with all of our ultrasound equipment in it! So we'll have to improvise tomorrow... maybe use hair gel.

Haiti is beautiful, but it is very, very sad here. We drove past miles of tents and shacks that the people live in. A lot of the buildings are crumbled.

We've been riding all day on bumpy, mostly unpaved roads, and we just got a flat tire. Elade says we're in "the donkey parking lot " - the HFHF folks will know what that is.

Oh, and our first meal that was graciously provided to us was rice n beans, beet salad and goat meat. Yum!

Will keep you all posted :)

-Pamela

Back in the Saddle: October Trip To Zorange

Hope for Haiti Foundation’s October trip is en route to Haiti & ready for the rodeo! The team left RDU bright and early this morning, and they should be landing in Port au Prince any minute. We might be just a little jealous as we think about them feasting on Vierge’s carry-out specialty – beet and potato salad – our favorite! (One day, Tara and I are for reals going to start The Gourmet Goat, our Haitian foodie blog side project. It's going to be legen…dary).

While we don’t have any “floggers” on this team (yes, apparently that’s the official term for a “foodie blogger”, as opposed to someone who beats, whips and/or flogs people - luckily, we don’t have any of those on the team either!), we do have four amazing ladies who are going to be providing you updates from Haiti this week! This October trip has a medical focus, and much of the team’s time will be spent training the nurses at the clinic to use some of our new gadgets like ultrasound machines and fancy microscopes...ya know, the little things those medical people like to keep around.

We've got veterans and newbies on this trip, and each of our bloggers has a unique perspective to offer based on their specialty area and past experience in Haiti. So while they spend the day making their way to Zorange, we'd like to introduce you to your lovely tour guides for this week.

Kim Bowers

An optometrist who will be leading the trip, Kim has been involved with HFHF for many years and has been traveling to Haiti since 2007. She “brought sight to Zorange” and fits people there with glasses for near and far sightedness as well as other eye problems. This trip she is training our nurses in Zorange how to use a slit microscope that will allow them to save eyesight by seeing and removing sand, wood or metal that gets in people’s eyes and causes damage.

A great story about her first trip to Haiti: she was fitting an older gentleman with a pair of glasses for distance. She had him go out of the room with the glasses on and look around. When he got out there, he said “The mountains are so beautiful!” He wasn’t the only one with tears in his eyes!

Cean Grinnell

Our resident detective, FedEx expert, master packer and all-around rockstar, Cean keeps the HFHF supply line open! As the our supplies director, she handles obtaining, organizing and packing supplies to be sent to Haiti with trips and in containers; it’s a huge job! She also has a knack for finding places in Haiti for us to buy needed items. If you remember anything about the logistics of getting, well, anything in Haiti, you’ll understand how awesome she is for the stuff she’s able to get her hands on.

This will be Cean’s third trip to Haiti, though she’s been volunteering for much longer. She usually helps Kim out in the eye clinic when in Haiti, and helps Elizabeth out all the time here in the States. In Elizabeth’s words: “I love her. She’s my buddy.”. We all love her, too.

Liz Holland

A nurse who has been traveling to Haiti since 2002, she does everything! Originally, she started out seeing patients with GI problems and eventually added eye patients to her repertoire, treating infections and conditions like dry eyes (Ben Stein shoutout!). Now, she sees just about anyone, treating a variety of illness and providing amazing support to our full-time clinic staff. What a great asset to the team!

Pamela Schiavone

An ultrasound technician at WakeMed hospital in Cary, N.C., Pamela is one of the most recent volunteers to drink the HFHF Kool-Aid. After hearing Kim Sniffin give a presentation about Hope for Haiti Foundation at WakeMed this spring, Pamela signed up to go on a trip the same day! She was right on time, too! Remember that cool ultrasound machine that was donated to the clinic back in May? Well, Pamela will spend the week training the nurses how to use the machine so they can detect and provide care for pregnancy, GI issues and other medical needs. A first-timer to Haiti, we’re really excited to read about the trip from her perspective.

Please pray for smooth travels for the team as they make their way to Zorange. Of course, we don’t mean LITERALLY smooth travel (we might be optimists, but we ain’t crazy); that’s practically an oxymoron on those Haitian roads and we’re already pushing our miracle quota. But we are praying for a safe trip, maybe with a little less river drama this time around. Check back this week for regular updates from the ground in Haiti!

Yeehaw!

GUEST BLOGGER: Lydia Dant talks about the new Community Health Workers program

We think it's time for you to read other people. While we know you love us, your faithful bloggers, things are getting a little too comfortable, and it's time to spice things up. That's why we bring you: the guest blogger (after all, distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?). In all seriousness, one thing we aim to do on this blog is to bring in other writers who can provide a different viewpoint, unique insights, expertise on a certain project area or a fuller picture of our work in Haiti. Whether it's someone who has been impacted by HFHF's projects in Haiti, a trip member or a core volunteer who focuses on specific programs, we're going to regularly bring in guest bloggers to offer a new voice to our communications. Our first guest post comes from Lydia Dant, who you've read about before from our September trip news. She shares about our recently-launched Community Health Workers program and what it means for the Bainet area.

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You have a headache, or arthritis, or the flu. You have an upset stomach, and you’re not sure if its something you should be concerned about. You think you might be pregnant, or you know you are. You have high blood pressure, or diabetes, or cataracts. Your son fell and has a large wound on his leg.

What do you do?

If you live in Zorange, Haiti, you only have 2 options: 1) do nothing 2) take a long & expensive journey to visit a health clinic.

Until recently, in fact, the second option did not exist. Thanks to generous donations and a dedicated Haitian medical staff, Zorange now has a medical clinic that sees about 50 patients a day – providing basic medicines, lab work, wound care, women’s health services, vaccinations, and maternity care. It is hard to appreciate the impact of this clinic when you live in the states, where a 10 minute car ride will bring you past at least a dozen places where you can buy Advil. Imagine if all of those drug stores vanished? Welcome to Zorange, pre-HFHF clinic.

[people waiting in line to be seen at the Zorange clinic]

While the clinic provides hundreds with necessary medical care, there are hundreds more who don’t know about the clinic, or can’t travel to the clinic. Some are too sick. [When is the last time you had the flu and thought “I know what I’d like to do right now. I’d like to take a 4 hour hike in 100 degree weather over 4 mountains with no water, food, or shoes.”] Even if you are up for the trek, the river is too high to cross at certain times of year, making it impossible to reach the clinic. Others have to stay home because they are the sole caregiver for their family. And, while the clinic will never turn down a patient for lack of funds, spending the day traveling to a clinic is an expense of lost wages.

These are just some of the reasons why it was necessary to create a third option to meet people’s health needs: Community Health Workers. CHWs are a critical part of HFHF’s medical program. HFHF currently has two community health workers in each of the 9 sections of Bainet. Many of these sections have no medical care whatsoever. The CHWs are trained to take blood pressures, temperatures, educate the community about sanitation and vaccinations, and also refer people to the HFHF clinic when they recognize a serious illness. The CHWs are also trained in basic prenatal care and to recognize complications in pregnancy and respond to these complications where appropriate. These CHWs are the eyes, ears, and, often times, hands of medical care in these communities where previously, health problems have never been addressed.

The CHWs are also helping HFHF to gather baseline data for each community. With this information, our medical staff will have a better sense of the scope of medical issues in the communities, and will be more equipped to meet people’s needs. Because they live in the communities, the CHWs can catch things like malnutrition early on before it becomes life threatening. They can educate families on the importance of hand washing, how to prevent dehydration from diarrheal disease, or the signs and symptoms of malaria. Communication & education is a big part of what CHWs can do in a community. Without WebMD or ‘The Learning Channel,’ CHWs are the primary source of medical information and knowledge. These CHWs are the lifeline for each of these communities.

[Myrlan, who oversees the community health workers, in the Zorange pharmacy]

So, that cut that your son got on his leg can now be bandaged without a day-trip to the clinic, decreasing the risk of infection. You can receive some pain relief from that headache without investing an entire day to do so. Your fears can be relieved when the CHW takes your blood pressure and lets you know that everything is fine, or that you are responding well to the blood pressure medication the clinic gave you last month.

The impact of these CHWs is immeasurable (well, almost. We do believe in monitoring & evaluation for effective programming!) But to a sick or suffering patient, these dedicated workers are an answer to prayer. And, would you believe that all of this happens for only $70 per month? For a mere $840 a year, a community health worker is provided with a living wage and a stable income to support their family. In return, they provide a community with health, support, peace of mind, and hope. For $70 a month. For those of you who struggle with numbers, the cost-benefit ratio here is about a gazillion to one.

As we finish the first year of our CHW project, and look ahead to year two, we are more excited than ever at the impact it is having. Thanks for letting us share it with you.

XXX

Lydia Dant first traveled to Haiti in 2008 to conduct a research project for her master's in public health degree. She and Mahsa (see video below) traveled through the nine sections of Bainet, surveying community members about their greatest medical needs. Like most unsuspecting first-time travelers to Zorange, she was hooked and has been involved with Hope for Haiti Foundation ever since. With her background in public health, Lydia works with several of HFHF's medical projects, with a focus on maternal and child health and the Community Health Workers program. Lydia is originally from the Boston area, and now lives in Ft. Myers, Florida, where she and her husband, Brian, work at ECHO.


Check out this video to hear Matt, Mahsa and Laura explain more about the Community Health Workers program.

In Their Voice: Medical Care in Haiti

If you've spent any time around those of us involved with Hope for Haiti Foundation, you've probably heard us say, well, a lot of things. Raving about the Haitian coffee. Excessive use of the word "awesome." And if you're in Haiti with us, probably a lot of "pa komprann" (which means, "I don't understand" in Creole :)). But one thing you definitely will have heard us talk about is the enormous need for accessible medical care in Haiti.

It's hard for us here to imagine life without doctors - not to mention specialized doctors, pharmacies on every corner (and in every Target! Hello, new shoes with each prescription filled!) and cutting edge surgical centers. But for many in rural Haiti, it can take 6 to 12 hours - and a lot of money - just to get to somewhere that can administer medical care, which is often subpar or completely insufficient. And keep in mind that this is not your average 6-to-12-hour trip. The lucky ones with vehicles face a long journey of bumpy, unpaved roads and potential obstacles like swelled rivers (not only is the lack of medical care an issue in and of itself, but the lack of infrastructure complicates everything), but for many, this journey is done on foot, over mountains. Women in labor. People bleeding to death. People with high fevers, headache, diarrhea from infectious disease. WALKING to the doctor. Not only does that sound completely miserable (let's be honest, last month, I had a simple ear infection and still subjected myself to five hours of "Real Housewives of New Jersey" before I could drag myself off the couch to drive to the doctor. I'm. so. embarrassed.), but it makes emergency response essentially nonexistent. People die senseless deaths everyday from things that we don't even consider life-threatening here - all because a simple lack of access.

Much of the knowledge we have about the current medical situation in the Bainet city section of Haiti (remember, Bainet is a region in the Sud Est department of Haiti - it's divided into nine sections, one of which is Zorange) is thanks to a health survey that Lydia and Mahsa did in May 2008 as a research project for their Masters in Public Health degree (not only are we cute, but we're smart!).
The facts that we learned from these interviews have proved invaluable and guided much of our approach to our medical projects, but it's the stories that stick in our hearts. As we begin focusing on fundraising for some major medical initiatives, we wanted to share some of the quotes from the interviews with y'all, because, while you've probably heard us talk about a lot of stuff, we think it's always more powerful when told in their voices. These truly paint the picture of the medical situation in Haiti and the challenge people face regarding their health.

“I was walking home my water broke. I went to Petit - Goâve and then after that to the General Hospital and it was closed. I had a friend who took me to a hospital in Caw Foo. It was raining and when I got there the doctor said if you have money you will survive, if you have no money you will not survive. I gave the money, and they bought medicine and gave me an IV. He told me the baby won’t survive and when the baby was born they hit the baby but the baby didn’t cry. The baby was born abnormal. The baby died 5 days after delivery.” (Female, Section 6)

“If someone has complications during labor, we have to create a stretcher to carry that person for 6-7 hours to Bainet by hand. They do not always make it and die on the way.” (Section 4)

“We go to Fonds des Blancs if more serious, but it takes all day to walk (12 hours). We do not go to Jacmel, Bainet because they have nothing there.” (Section 9a)

“When our wives give birth we carry them on our shoulders to give birth and they die. When we arrive at Bainet we have to then go to Jacmel.” (Male, Section 5)

“Sometimes we went so far and when we arrived we did not have medicine for our troubles and it is bad because we used our money and did not receive anything.” (Male, Section 8)

“If you have a serious illness, you will most likely die before you get to the hospital, because the road is bad.” (Section 9a)

“We hear that help is coming but we do not receive the help because where we live is the last corner and what the government gives does not arrive here.” (Male, Section 5)


We also have some awesome quotes about how much the clinic in Zorange is helping, and we're really excited about some of our recent initiatives like the community health workers program, but we can't seem to shake the knowledge that there's still so much more to be done. One thing that came out through the focus groups was the fact that in the entire Bainet city, there isn't a hospital that can perform a surgery. That's why we're so serious about building this hospital - it will give more than 500,000 people access to medical care that simply doesn't exist for them now. We have the buildings and we have a really exciting plan that our amazing architects put together, and we're about to get serious about fundraising to make this thing happen (game faces on!). Because, while we hate to make it about money, hospitals ain't cheap, and we need to raise at least $1 million to make the beginning phases of the plan a reality (cue the early-90s Barenaked Ladies hit "If I Had a Million Dollars". Or if we really want to dream, fast forward 15 years to "Billionaire". *sigh* Inflation.). Check back soon for some more details about the hospital (including snazzy 4-D imaging of the plans!) & details on how you can help...we're excited for you all to dream with us :)

-Your Favorite Marketing & PR Team

P.S. If you want to learn more about the medical scene in Haiti, we highly recommend reading Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, about Paul Farmer's work in Haiti. Paul Farmer is one of the founders of Partners in Health, probably one of the most effective charities working in Haiti right now, and one of the great champions for medical care in developing countries. His work is centralized in the Centre Department but the book does a great job describing the medical challenges the country faces. And while you're at it, why not put on Arcade Fire's latest, The Suburbs? They're strong supporters of PIH, and that CD has been on repeat for weeks. Happy reading & listening!