We made our third trip to Bahon, what the Haitian government says has the worst health indicators in the north and second worst in Haiti. It has a twin parish with Holy Family Catholic Church of Nashville, Tennessee, led by Patty Gaines. Our last planned trip, 1 year ago, was cancelled by the tropical storm, as was Patty's trip, so the village was even more in need of help.
It was 2 hours by bumpy ride from Cap, now seemed to be a little shorter and less bumpy. We were driven by our friend Father Abraham, as our newer, better car for this difficult trip was still not credentialled to be used after 5 months (see story from Elisabeth about that). We had nice stops at Hopital Sacre Coeur, where we met with Dr. Previl, and at Hopital Grand Riviere, where we got a grand tour of a very nice not well known new hospital staffed by 21 Cuban docs and nurses (see blog by Julian).
Josh and Anna in Grand Riviere du Nord
Father Gaby was our host, and runs a very nice parish with a school, rectory/guest house, and clinic, called St. Joseph's, with the help of Sister Rose and Sister Cecilia (who is also a nurse and runs the clinic). The sisters have taken care of Joshua since he was a little baby and first came there and slept in a little "manger" that they made for him. This time he was following around and playing with the boys of the village, who all learned how to pronounce his name very well.
This clinic has a doctor working there only once a week (not the day we were there), the rest of the time Sister Cecilia runs it.
Next morning we did clinic, with the help of Elisabeth and Juline, and Julian did some pill cutting so we could distribute a large amount of donated 100 mg captopril tabs and also for 500 mg griseofulvin tabs we bought at the pharmacy in Cap for Tinea Capitis. We saw 35 kids. Included was a now 2 year old that a pediatrician with us last year found to have anal atresia with a vaginal fistula. With great difficulty, we helped arrange for surgery in Cange by a pediatric surgeon from Harvard. Her anus is now beautiful as an anus can be, and she is growing and developing pretty well.
The worst case of the day was a boy with an extensive dental infection.
Bahon has a lot of dental problems (there is a theory there is something about the water) and we brought a lot of toothpaste and some brushes we could gather. We are trying to arrange for mobile clinics with the Cap Haitien Dental Institute and ongoing dental visits there by the Haitian dentist, Dr. Junior, and Patty has a dentist coming with her team in January.
Julian, Juline and I also visited the MSPP Dispensaire that is also in Bahon, a few hundred feet south of the Catholic clinic, on the river. It has a delivery area, the nurses deliver babies in the clinic, and provide other care, as there is no longer the weekly physician visit that they used to have. We met Mdm Napolean the nurse, and another worker there told us about her 5 year old son with undescended testicle (which is much later than would be ideal to be treated for that condition). She brought him to be seen at the clinic we held St. Joseph's, and we used the Network calendar to find out when there will be surgeons and urologists who might be able to treat him.
Dispensaire of Bahon, along the Grand Riviere du Nord and close to St. Joseph's clinic
We encouraged the staff at both clinics to interact and assist each other, especially as St. Joseph's is the only one that gets visiting teams. We are looking for organizations and teams that might like to help the Dispenaire.
We always enjoy our visits to Bahon. It is a beautiful community that is isolated and needs more assistance in health and dental care.
They have 80 people per week. They receive medications from MSPP and ICC.
