Getting on the bus this morning was the beginning of a new adventure. We had to get up an hour earlier, but it was worth it to help the people living in the rural areas of Haiti.
Outside the city, the walls are gone and the mountains takeover the horizon. There’s green grass, little farm crops, palm trees and tiny villages. We also saw goats (and the cutest baby goats EVER), sheep, cows and donkeys in the fields. There aren’t herds of cows like you would see in the U.S.; they only have enough animals for the family to live on. There weren’t any stores or shops by the little village we visited, so basically the family needs to grow or raise their own food to survive.
Our set up today was in a church, which meant we could use the benches for patient/provider seating and creating natural barriers for each station. Just like on the other days, as soon as we rolled in, people started to line up outside the door. One of our first patients was an farmer who came in with one shoe and resting his weight on a stick. His other foot was shoeless because it had a nasty burn on the top and infection was starting to set in.
He told us it happened eight days ago. He was making peanut butter, and when he was heating the oil to mix into the peanuts, it fell off the stove and spilled on his foot. He’s been in a lot of pain since and hadn’t been able to sleep. We cleaned the burn to reduce the infection and then showed him what he would need to do to keep it clean and help it heal.
There were a couple cases of TB again today. While that’s no longer new to us, what was new was that the people knew they had TB but were not able to afford treatment so were living with it. But it was the kids that stole our hearts again at this location.
Unlike the patients from the camps, these patients came dressed in their best clothes. The little girls were in dresses, and we could tell the parents took special care in getting ready and making sure everyone was clean to see the doctor. Malnourishment was a common issue, and many of the people and babies hadn’t eaten for a day or even two days.
“You can tell they haven’t eaten because when I listen to their intestines, they sound hollow,” said Dr. Amanda. “Normally, you would hear sounds in there because of the food.”
But what made the situation more desperate was when a family came in with a young girl who had a tummy ache. It turns out the girl was so hungry she had been eating dirt. They try to mix it with water and make a soup out of it. Some of families are able to grow some food but they often end up selling it as that’s their only means of income.
To help them, our team handed out supplements and tried to educate them on nutrition. We also educated them on worms – and how to reduce their chances of getting them. Worms are so common in the locations where we are conducting our missions, that nearly every patient is prescribed pills to get rid of them. We even had a 3-month-old baby who we suspected had worms. Every time we touched it’s little tummy, you could tell from the kicking feet that it hurt.
Alex, our 15-year-old super volunteer, had her best day so far. Alex has been assisting our fearless leader Linnea on the mission and has been going non-stop. Today she got the chance to work in the community education station. “I want to work in the medical field more than ever now,” she said. “Today I got to interact with the patients more by teaching them about personal hygiene and it was so fun.”
In total, we saw 331 patients, the most we have seen in a day so far. Again there were numerous STDs and patients with low iron, but we also had some critical patients, including a 19-year-old girl we had to transport to the hospital.
“She had malaria before and was treated for it. But now all her symptoms are back. She’s got a fever at night, she’s vomiting after eating, she’s lost weight, etc. So she’s worried she has it again,” said Dr. Amanda.
Listening to her lungs wheeze and watching her gasp for breath, helped us make the decision to send her to the hospital, but because the village was located in the middle of nowhere and she was unable to get there herself, IMR took care of the transportation costs for her. It's a small thing, but it just may have saved her life.
Related posts:
Haiti Day 1: Start of Medical Mission Trip
Haiti Day 2: Transforming a school to a medical clinic
Haiti Day 3: Venturing out to help in rural areas
Haiti Day 4: Sweating it out on New Year's Eve on a Mission Trip
Haiti Day 5: Final day of the International Medical Relief mission
Haiti: The boy with the foot
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