2/1/10 UPDATE: The needs continue to pour into the hospital.
300 people have arrived each morning at 4 AM for the past week to be seen. The medical team continues to work undaunted by the these sheer numbers. Without a hospital to help, our team of seven seven individuals have stood in the gap in this area of thousands of needy people. God has made a way so far for us to do this work and he will continue. Please pray for our continued ability to show Gods love to the many untreated in
Petit Goave, Haiti. Please also pray for the health of the members of this team. Dr. Caleb has been working through a viral gastroenteritis that has left him very nauseated and dehydrated. But, as he said today “its nothing compared to the suffering of the Haitians around me. Ill be fine, God will give us the strength, Ive seen him do much bigger things each and every day since being here.” Thank you for your continued support. Your help is vital now more then ever here in Haiti.
Please pray for Dr. Caleb. He has become ill.
Miracles and Praises
1/31/10 UPDATE: Miracles still happen in this world everyday. Last night an individual presented with a massive case of aspiration pneumonia after having a prolonged seizure and choking on water and food that was in his mouth. As his lungs began to fill more and more with fluid the team believed he would surely die before morning. This condition is often lethal in some of the finest equipped intensive care units in the United States, but here in Haiti he surely had no chance. Prayer was offered for this mans health before the team rested.
This morning they were awakened with the shouts of this very man as he came walking up giving thanks. The entire team gave thanks and praise as they knew they were witnessing a modern day miracle.
This afternoon, while juggling multiple deliveries and old injuries and man was carried in profusely bleeding from his head. As the story was told, the team began to have a sense of just how critical he actually was. This man had been on a motorcycle as it was hit by another vehicle and was thrown off. Plans were quickly made to find proper treatment. Along with Dr. Caleb, this man was airlifted to the University of Miami hospital at the airport in Port au Prince where surgeons could quickly asses and treat him. Things like this are common in the US but in a country like Haiti where this injury is usually a death sentence, this young man having a shot at life is a small miracle in itself. For articles about the situation in Petit Goave: Miami Herald
We praise God for a few things in particular. First, for the four Haitian nurses who lost everything they had in the earthquake who have been working day and night at the hospital. Giving of themselves for their community while their lives are crumbling around them is a inspiring thing to watch. Thanks to the Wesleyan mission in Ti Guave who have given us the facilities that we lacked to care for these people. Without them this would not have been possible.
Thanks to Samaritian’s Purse who have been right there when we need them with helicopter transport for the most critical patients.
Today, an official by to deliver some shocking news. The estimates coming from the larger organizations in the area state that our small hospital is the only care for a population of 150,000 in and around Petite Guave. This is a tough task to manage for a large governmental organization but for a smaller ministry like ours, without the active working of God in every step, this would have never been possible. In addition, without your heart for the Haitian people and your contributions to this cause nothing would been possible. From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for your support.
Please forward this to anyone else who would be interested. Sign up for email updates at www.aidforhaiti.org
Massive Need
1/30/10 UPDATE: The AFH medical relief team continued to work throughout the day and night in Petit Guave. Since the city hospital has been deemed unsafe, we have assumed responsibility of all care for entire city.
Overnight, working with nurses from Samaritans Purse, Dr. Caleb served as the only general doctor for a city of 50,000. “We are on our 5th delivery of the night, one person showed up dying of a simple Asthma attack and there seems to be a never ending line of new trauma sustained during the earthquake” Dr. Caleb said this morning after receiving two full hours of sleep. “God has blessed us though, it seems that every time we turn around there is a new critical patient with a problem out of our scope. But, we seem to have just the right medicine at just the right time. You can tell God is doing a wonderful thing here.” Even when overwhelmed, God has provided a way. “When we found multiple children with open fractures, we did not know what to do. We have no orthopedic surgeon here” he said. A door soon opened though, “Out of the blue we received a call from an orthopedic surgery team from Iowa in the nearby city of Leogane and the help of Samaritans purse we were able to have multiple patients airlifted within hours out to the exact care they needed.”
In a town as large as this, with only one doctor, not everyone knows where to go for help. Answering this call has been the Haitian church.
Coordinating with the local church leaders in the city and surrounding region, a health network has emerged. Church leaders have taken time away from rebuilding their homes to search out the most critically injured taking them directly to the hospital for care. Whether its multiple organizations, or multiple nations, when the church comes together for a unified effort, its a powerful thing to see. For the next few months, there will be a critical need for more physicians, nurses and supplies to continue what has been started. Please pray with us that we find the right individuals to continue this work. Also please pray for this ministry as we meet with leaders from Samaritan’s Purse and the Wesleyan church, today, to ensure the people of this city are not once again forgotten and that ministry opportunities to the city continue.
Thank you for your support of this ministry. Please forward this to anyone else who would be interested. Sign up for email updates at www.aidforhaiti.org
Just the Surface
1/29/10 UPDATE: The AFH team has arrived in Ti Guave. Ti Guave is a town of around 50,000 people near the epicenter of the earthquake. It is far enough south
that much of the aid that has reached Port au Prince has not made its way here as of yet. Initial reports from the team state that the situation there is very urgent. We are working at the home base of the National Wesleyan Mission which has been converted into a field hospital by the marines and a small contingent of doctors. This group of doctors plans to leave tomorrow. This will leave much of the care of the city to our medical team who have been badly strained by the need already.
Working with this mission we are developing a plan to have the hospital staffed to help the city for the next 2-3 months. At last count there was over 300 patients injured and waiting for care, multiple sick newborns and two women in active labor. We have a critical need for more physicians and nurses to staff this hospital for the next few months. Please forward this email to anyone that may be able to help. Praise should be given for the marines that are ensuring security at the hospital, we hope that hey stay for the long term. Our team is in Urgent need of further prayer and support.
Thank you for your support of this ministry. Please forward this to anyone else who would be interested. Sign up for email updates at www.aidforhaiti.org
Helping Old Friends
1/28/10 UPDATE: The AFH team traveled to Carrefour where they met Pastor Ulrich (a man that we have worked with multiple times in the past). Pastor Ulrich’s house is about the only house still standing in his neighborhood looking like an island in the sea. They have been spending the nights in the Pastor’s house and have set up a temporary clinic next door in the courtyard of a church house.
Most of the church building is too damaged to be safe to use so only the supplies are inside the building. Many of the patients that the team has been seeing have wounds from the earthquake that have not been treated and are now complicated by infection. This evening the team has an exciting opportunity to minister in a different way. The plan is for local people to gather together for a meeting where the team will have the privilege of sharing the Gospel with them. We are continuing to evaluate the needs that we are aware of and try to work where we are needed the most. As more healthcare becomes available in the areas around Port-Au-Prince it seems that the people in Carrefour are starting to have more access to hospitals and clinics. The plan is for the team to relocate tomorrow to Petit Goave (Ti Goave) where a Wesleyan Mission has asked for their help. There had been a medical team at this mission but they returned home today and the Wesleyan Mission states that they are still in great need of healthcare providers. Please pray for the team and for AFH that we would have the wisdom and understanding that we need to proceed with plans that would be effective in helping the people of Haiti and that the love of Jesus would be demonstrated through our lives.
The Devistation
1/27/10 UPDATE: Today the Aid for Haiti medical team has reached the populated city of Carrefour and has started medical ministry to the people of the area. Early in the morning, people came from all around the city when rumor spread about the possibility of doctors in the area. Reports
indicate that many in this area have not yet received any medical aid and only now two weeks after the earthquake are able to find help. From gangrenous legs to simple untreated wounds, the Haitian people have been extremely thankful, expressing that “they were not forgotten”. Untreated infected wounds have been the most common presentation by far. Thanks to your support, we were able to bring large amounts of medical supplies including wound dressings, surgical equipment, modern antibiotics and anesthesia to treat the masses that have come to clinic nursing these infections. Without this treatment many risked losing arms, legs and possibly their lives. Reportedly, the Haitian people were most amazed by the anesthesia provided by the me
dical team. In an area where many have been commonly enduring amputations using only vodka and hacksaws, these modern anesthesia drugs seemed almost miraculous. What we take for granted here was a huge blessing to some, and an amazement for all, as patients underwent painful procedures in comfort and awoke without complaint. We thank you all for your support during this time. Without you this would not be possible. Please consider contributing to Aid for Haiti, below, as we prepare supplies and logistics for multiple medical teams to travel into Haiti over the next to months. Our focus will continue to provide medical aid further and further into the hardest to reach places where many rely on us for their sole medical care.
We hope to provide further updates daily. Please forward this to anyone else who would be interested. Sign up for email updates at www.aidforhaiti.org
New Beginnings
1/26/10 UPDATE: New word from the ground in Haiti: Our team has arrived in Port au Prince. They have been using the past few hours to care for some of the worst injured in a small neighborhood in Port. Guyteau has found those previously untreated and been able to bring them to receive care. Tomorrow the team will be returning to Carrefour, one of the hardest hit areas by this earthquake. Carrefour is a suburb of Port au Prince that is home to almost 500,000 people. We expect that there will be massive need there as it has received little aid thus far. We will use this area to treat patients in a field hospital setting for the rest of the week in conjunction with the Haitian church there. Sunday the team will be moving on to Ti Guave, another devastated city. Ti Guave lies along the northern coast of the south part of the country. There we will be working with Pastor Bruce out of Fon Doux. The plan is to take over from the previous large aid organization in the city as the main source of medical aid for the entire city when they plan to leave this weekend. Please pray for as we expect to be one of the only givers of medical aid in a large city full of devastation. There remains a critical need for further funding for supplies and medical equipment on this trip and the next two. We will be updating all week, please forward this onto other friends and family that would be interested.
Post Earthquake
Haiti- March 2010
Having been to Haiti previously I was not quite sure what to expect post- earthquake. The first change I noticed was when I arrived in the Nashville, International Airport. There was an aid group checking in that had a “mountain” of totes that were on their way to Port-Au-Prince. The entire trip down I met people along the way that were bound for Haiti. It was encouraging to see other NGOs putting so much into the relief efforts. Once I arrived, it was interesting to see who was really getting the work done. Not to fault the efforts of large organizations, but many of them seem to have gotten hung up in “red tape”, and many of them were stuck in the immediate area around the capitol. Upon arriving at the PAP airport we were shuttled from the plane to a large new warehouse structure where we picked up our baggage and worked our way through customs. Outside we found the driver that was to take us to Petit Goave, where we would be working on the Wesleyan Compound at our clinic. After fighting the traffic and the heat in Port-Au-Prince we spent the next several hours driving through the countryside. Along the way we saw evidence of the devastation. At one place there were the ruins of a four story building, now flattened like a stack of pancakes to a height of less than six feet. All along the way, the road was unexpectedly broken by cracks and fissures. The area of Petit Goave where our clinic was set up is nearby the ocean. That whole section of the town had shifted in the quake and dropped several feet. Every street going into the area had several places where they had to dump dirt to form a ramp to smooth out the drop off. The Wesleyan Compound was beautiful with its location by the ocean facilitating a cool breeze off the water. The building that we were using for our clinic was mainly being used for a pharmacy, with one end set up for OB and neonatal care. Surrounding the clinic building was an assortment of canopies, tarps and benches where we treated patients. We also had one wooden outbuilding that The U.S. Marines built us, which we were using as an ICU for patients that needed more than walk-in and walk-out care. After we dropped our luggage in the various tents where we were to sleep, we quickly got started helping with the patient load. The first several days passed with a flurry of activity. Emergencies and mothers coming in to deliver their babies continued 24 hours a day. The first evening there we devised a plan of primary and secondary OB and trauma teams to manage through the nights that would allow for those who were already there to get some much needed rest. Being an EMT-IV, I was assigned to Trauma team 1. The first night we spent most of the night taking care of various injuries that came in. Over the next several nights we had motor vehicle accident injuries, a gunshot wound (the result of a “cited” intervention by the police in a robbery???), a security guard who was assaulted with a machete, and various other trauma cases. Following the earthquake our clinic was providing the only medical care to the area. The Notre Dame hospital in Petit Goave had stopped operations for a number of weeks due to staffing problems and other issues. One of the goals for our time there was to gradually shift the medical care back over to the hospital without overwhelming them with a sudden transfer of all fields of patient care. One area of care that we were providing was OB and delivery. Several nights we had 2 or 3 mothers walking the compound between contractions, waiting for imminent delivery. There were so many deliveries that everyone got to assist in as many as they cared to and there were still plenty more to deliver. We had many patients for whom we provided the best care we had available and prayed for them, trusting the healing power of God. There were several cases in which it was very obvious that it was the healing hand of God that made them well. One of those cases was a young girl that presented with cerebral malaria. She came in already in the coma stage of the disease. At this point it is very critical to get IV treatment started immediately. We were able to get an IV started and started the medication. The problem was that we were not sure if she had been brought to us soon enough for the treatment to take effect before it was too late. We spent hours praying over her and finally she became responsive and definitely took a turn for the better. We cared for her through the night and the next morning she was well enough to go home. Even though we spent many nights with very little sleep, God gave us the strength to continue in our efforts and we were able to help many people. By the end of our time there we had accomplished a complete shift of all aspects of the local medical care except OB and some of the nighttime emergencies. These were to continue to be phased out over the next several weeks until the hospital was able to handle everything. We were blessed by many volunteers that worked alongside us in our efforts, and also with monetary support that was and still is a vital need to our continued ministry. Also as we were shifting the care back to the local hospital, we were preparing to move to a new location several kilometers away in the small town of La’Cule. We spent hours sorting through our supplies, packing them in boxes, and trucking them to the new location. Our work continues there as we provide medical care to that location and also use it as a base for our mobile clinic. We continue to make trips into the mountains, taking along our buckets filled with meds and hiking, sometimes several hours, to reach the remote villages. We treasure each of your prayers and other support in any way God lays it on your heart to help. We recognize that even our best efforts without the blessing of God and the support of His people would amount to very little. Please continue to pray for the work in Haiti, that God would continue to give us guidance in directing us to the areas where we are most needed. Also that God would continue to work in the hearts of the people as we share the good news of the Gospel, that souls would be saved and that the power of Satan would be vanquished across the country of Haiti.
Earthquake Relief
Aid for Haiti earthquake relief.
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