Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Our way to Cap Haitian

SUNDAY

We were off on the return journey to Port au Prince. It was a beautiful drive once again through the mountains. The difficult part of the journey was getting through PAP. There was a lot of traffic even for a Sunday.

Our tortugair flight was on time and then finally we were in Cap Haitian. We were greeted by Santo Pierre, our new medical director.

At the Roi Christophe I also met with members of the Konbite Sante Health Team. I've been working with Konbite over the past year on an Emergency Room Assessment of the Justinien Hospital.

MONDAY

Time spent in the morning at the Justinian with the Konbite Team. In the afternoon I met with Dr. Medard of International Child Care. ICC has a clinic nearby in the village of Bas Limbe. We met to discuss a possible collaboration of services.

TUESDAY
Off to Bod me Limbe with Dr. Mona, Nurse Aldine and Santo to re-open the doors of the clinic. It had been closed for a brief time over the Christmas season. Everything was in order at the clinic and the staff will be returning to work on Monday.

In the evening, I attended the meeting of the Cap Haitian Health Care Network with Santo. The network started last year and the goal is to encourage cooperation of medical groups working in the region. It was great to put faces to the names I had been writing to for so long by email.

WEDNESDAY
Today I visited the Shada Clinic...sponsored by SOIL and Sasha Kramer. Dr. Mona works there each Wednesday so I visited to help out with consultations in the morning. Shada is the poorest neighbourhood in Cap Haitian and in desperate need of medical care. I plan to continue our support of this clinic through medication distribution.

In the afternoon, I was off to the Justinian for a meeting with Konbite Sante and the ER staff to discuss plans for a potential new addition to the ER department.

THURSDAY
Off to the hospital again in the morning. Returned for a meeting with Dr. Mona, Dr. Eugene (who works with the Cap Health Network) and Carwyn Hill of Haiti Hospital Appeal. Carwyn recently moved to Cap with his wife. We discussed the clinic at Shada and ways that we could improve the services offered there.

FRIDAY/SATURDAY
This was a wrap up day with Konbite Sante as well as my medical staff before we headed back to Port au Prince on Sunday.

MONDAY
In Port au Prince I was able to meet with the new National Director of International Child Care, Dr. Rudolph Magloire to discuss collaboration of our clinics.

I was also fortunate to meet with Bella Lam, Director of Canadian Feed the Children and her National Director, Mr. Madsen Gauchette. Bella had recently visited BML but was in Haiti at this time to assess her other programs in the region.

Now, it's almost 2 weeks later since I've visited Haiti. Overall it was a very good trip. The experience I gained in Jacmel will allow us to plan for future mission work in that region. I am pleased to see that our clinic in Bod me Limbe runs well under our local staff. That has been our goal all along...and now it has been achieved. Thank you to all for their support.

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