Visit to Caracol

Our Network Support Team with Elisabeth and I and nursing students from Ohio and Trish and Walter from Friends of Ft. Liberte all visited the once anonymous village of Caracol, by the ocean in the northeast.  Now it is the site of the new Industrial Park that is being built, fortunately on the way in to town and not on the water, and is expected to have eventually 60000 workers there.

There is currently still only a MSPP clinic in town, and a dispensaire.  The MSPP clinic is supported by the priest, Father du Village, who was out of town again on this visit, but he sent his associate priest to meet us.  We also met the two nurses, Mortimer Helen, who works for the church, and Nadege Lamour, who works for MSPP.  As we learned on our last visit in February 2011, the nurses deliver babies.  Since then, they have gotten a doctor, currently Dr. Riviere Maite who works there 3 days a week. 

The pharmacy is down the street from the clinic in the Catholic school.  We saw a lot of meds that we had sent from Direct Relief on their shelves.  Edna Pierre works in the pharmacy (pictured).  We were told they had trouble getting amoxicillin, cipro, and cotrimoxazole.  Fortunately we had cipro with us supplied by Globus Relief, and gave the pharmacy a tray of 12 bottles of 100 tabs of cipro.

They also have an ambulance, which we saw parked in the school courtyard, which is of interest as an emergency medical system is developed for the area.

There was also a request for HIV drugs, as there are problems with women refusing to go to the official clinics for that.  We explained that we did not want to do that in a less than fully organized way due to the potential for resistance to develop with inconsistent use, but understand the problem and will try to look for a solution.  There was also a request for condoms.

We saw the village cholera tent in another part of the village, which has no patients at this time (as was the case in all of the cholera facilities we saw on this trip, thank goodness).

They have electricity for the clinic, but need a nebulizer.  There is still unused radiology equipment in the clinic.

 

We also met a member of the Presbyterian church of Pator Payotte, named Kinson, as Pastor was also not available on that day.  Kinson showed us the school where the visiting teams from Indiana come 3-4 times per year, whom I have met before on their way out of the area.  The water system that has been developed there is pictured in the photo.

Kinson says that a team of dentists is coming soon.  We asked for the dates of all teams so we can make services know to the Network.  Kinson says that all are welcome to the visiting team clinics.

 

We have been asking to try to find out what the Industrial park plans for healthcare services for all the new people, and try to get all those interested in the village on board to make things as good as possible in the mean time and hopefully benefitting in the near future from greater resources for healthcare.

 

Ted Kaplan, MD