Shada Visit/Haiti Hospital Appeal

Today Juline and Greg visited the Shada clinic with Ashley from SOIL. It was Greg's first trip into the Shada neighborhood, which sits below the bridge in Cap. The neighborhood is one of the city's poorest and sanitation is worse there than most places in the city. Today was a busy day for Dr. Jeanty, the clinics only clinician. With Dr. Jeanty and the clinic staff we discussed information about the clinic and using it as a site on Friday's for a malaria research project we will conduct using Rapid Diagnostic Tests from the Science with A Mission organization. Greg will be in the clinic on Friday's assisting Dr. Jeanty and running the malaria project and is very excited about helping out in the neighborhood. Today we also had the great pleasure of seeing Madame Bwa who has been delivering babies in the Shada area for 54 years. Nearly every person we passed spanning several generations had been birthed by her including Dr. Jeanty.



After we finished at the Shada clinic we went to visit Haiti Hospital Appeal's children rehab center. The children here all have various physical or mental disabilities. They spend 1 - 3 days a week at the center and the remainder of the week with their families. The staff there works so patiently with the kids and provides various therapies to help with their mobility and functioning. They also school someof the children and work with their families on techniques to improve the quality of life for the children. Juline and Greg spent nearly 3 hours there playing with and helping to feed the children. It was a very hard place to leave as the children were so enjoyable to be around. (Juline was too embarassed to have picture of her dancing for the children posted.)

We then met with Phil, who is the Treasurer for the organization building and operating Haiti Hospital Appeal. He toured us around the campus which includes the 24/7 clinic and the spinal cord rehabilitation unit that housed many spinal cord injury victims from the earthquake. The spinal cord center has discharged a majority of these patients who have returned home after completing much of their therapy. Each discharge has been trained to sew and given a sewing machine to provide them with a potential job skill.

Phil showed us the new buildings under construction on the campus which include a surgery unit, maternity ward, neonatal ward (with 5 incubators), and pediatric ward. The facility is quite impressive and the enthusiasm of Phil and the other staff was evident.