 Nurse Candi in the Mobile Pharmacy |
 May Medical Mission Team Members |
May 4, 2010
This update from Les Cayes, Haiti covers the efforts of our 6-person Medical Team as they provide high-quality, primary healthcare to hundreds of patients throughout the south of Haiti. This week, we have four returning volunteers from Florida; Dr. Steve Shukan, registered nurse Candi Thompson, nurse practitioner Monna Lesperance, and Hope for Haiti’s Executive Director, Elizabeth Davison. Joining us also are two first time volunteers from Detroit and Canada, registered nurses Connie Wheeler and John St. Laurent.
Accompanied by Hope for Haiti field staff and translators, the team spent their first two days conducting Mobile Medical Clinics in the rural communities of Baradères and Ravine Sable. In Baradères, we worked at the Little Sisters of Saint Thérèse clinic, a standing healthcare facility when there has been no doctor since November 2009. Dr. Shukan, a pediatric specialist, was in his element treating a strikingly high number of sick children, while Connie and John processed the vital signs and chief complaints of every patient in the packed, noisy clinic.
Monna and Dr. Steeve Victor, Hope for Haiti’s Healthcare Director, confronted several intense emergency cases and performed emergency life-saving procedures. So far, we’ve consulted 225 patients and sent them all home with treatment, medications, and necessary follow-up instructions. It is obvious to the team that the increased stress placed on families post-earthquake has resulted in a severe strain on the overall health of the community.
 Waiting to be seen, Ravine Sable |
 Dr. Shukan extracts a bead stuck in a child’s ear. |
 A teenage girl with bruised ribs, accompanied by her mother, Baraderes. |
Tomorrow brings us back from the field to the Hope for Haiti Infirmary in downtown Les Cayes. Our goal will be simple: to do all we can to alleviate Les Cayes; overwhelmed healthcare system as it struggles to keep up with the intensity of post-quake Haiti.