While we welcome discussion on this blog, issues meant for feedback from the Network should be posted on the discussion board by emailing caphealth@yahoogroups.com
Friday, June 22, 2012
Center De Sante de Grison-Garde
Today we signed up a new clinic with the Network! The clinic at Grison-Garde is very nice and has been in operation for 8 months, fully funded by the MSPP. They have a lab room, but no equipment, so they can't run all the tests. They are looking for help with this. Since they are newcomers to the area, they are looking for more help to develop the clinic. As of now, they have two doctors and two nurses on site. They see about 160 patients per month, with the numbers steadily increasing. Their charges for consultation are only 25 gds, and medication prices vary depending on what the patient can afford. The clinic buys their own medications, and they are hoping that the Network will be able to help them make medicine more affordable for their patients. They are not sponsored by or partnered with any other organizations, and working solely with the MSPP.
We delivered materials here and then went to Robillard to deliver more supplies, including Americares supplies and materials from DRI.
Earlier this week, we delivered materials to the MSPP to prevent a possible cholera outbreak at Grand Prison. We supplied them with soaps and disinfectants, and it was a great show of increased collaboration and quick response to sudden urgent need, especially in the continued fight against cholera.
We also visited the hospital in Fort Liberte, in the North-East department, and delivered many supplies to several other clinics along the way on Monday. Overall, a very productive week for the Network Team!
Friday, June 15, 2012
Network Activities for the week of June 11
This week the team went around and delivered medical supplies to clinics in Fort Bourgeois and Labadee. The clinics were small but certainly in need of anything we could offer them. It was so inspiring to see how persistent the staff and directors were in accomplishing their mission to provide health care to their communities, despite shortages of much-needed funding. At the clinic in Ft. Bourgeois, the entire staff – nurses, doctors, lab technicians, everything – were volunteering their time. Tim Randolphe, a U.S. medical practitioner and researcher at a university in St. Louis, spent Wednesday and Thursday at the Ft. Bourgeois clinic helping them set up their lab and training the technicians. Tim and a team of his come twice a year for several weeks to train Haitian staff working in laboratories in clinics all across the northern part of the country, and he has been in a sort of loose affiliation with the Network for quite some time now.
On Tuesday, Juline and I met with Jennifer Torres from Children's Place International to learn about the great work they're doing with families affected by HIV. By taking a holistic approach to social services and family care, they are able to keep families together by helping with HIV medication, food, school, shelter and other essential expenses, and giving families the resources they need to start supporting themselves on their own income. A great show for their efforts is how many of their case workers (who are all salaried employees), who visit and essentially become an extended part of the families in the program, were former clients themselves!
Today I met briefly with Jennifer Schmidt, who was one of the first members of the Network and recently started her own nonprofit, Espwa Foundation. Dr. Eugene, whom she works with closely at St. Anthony's Clinic, was driving his big white truck which was overflowing with other members of Jennifer's team riding in the bed. They pulled over on Route Nationale 1 to talk with us and give us an update on what work they're doing in Haiti and what they have planned for this trip. Really fun to meet them! They continued on to visit one of the orphanages that Covsky directs, but it seemed like the passenger limit was already quite at capacity so I did not join them.
I have also been collaborating with Wilnick, a recently added employee of Tim Underwood's Hope One Source, to start registering organizations within the Network for the beta testing phase of their project. Many of the people who were present at the "Meet and Mingle" on May 25th are really interested in the project, and we're doing our best to get it rolling with them here on the ground. Hope One Source really has the potential to strengthen the connections and material/information sharing between organizations in the Network, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out!
Julia