Did that just happen? It's hard to believe we finished our five days in clinic already. Then again, when we think about getting on the plane in Charleston it seems so long ago. Strange games the mind plays when our hearts become so wrapped up in a project.
Our team has had an amazing week. The team that served at Cite Soleil (Ann Marie Rader, Mary Jean Vogt, Ki m Sudheimer, Carrie Fabel, Sallie McWhorter, Kim Jeffords, and Cynthia Brown) started the week with about 80 patients for the day and we finished today with 147! We saw a wide variety of issues and offered comfort for the body and soul. We came in with a vague idea about a clinic that was already functioning that provided a sustained medical services free of charge without discrimination. Still, our minds were racing at the spectrum of chaos that could include. We were overwhelmingly suprised at how well the clinic ran from the first moment. They have an excellent full time staff, all locals, including a clinic coordinator, Haitian doctor, and a great team of translators who have the process down pat. Patients would gather before clinic opened for a worship service and then receive numbered registration cards. When their number was called they would be taken through triage where Sallie and Carrie would get vitals, identify their chief complaint and administer tetanus/diptheria/pertussis boosters, therapy for worms and vitamin A. Every effort was made to address the patient's spiritual needs with a couple dedicated translators for evangelism. After triage patients would be taken in to see the doctor as they became available. Doctors (Ann Marie, Mary Jean, and Kim) had private rooms with a specific translator they worked with all week. We could order a couple helpful tests from the lab connected to the clinic. When the interview and exam were done and the plan was made, the patient would be directed to the pharmacy to collect their prescription. Kim and Cynthia worked feverishly with their dedicated pharmacy guru/translator, Jackson, to prepare all the supplies the patient required. All throughout the process we made our best effort to show them God's love and give them peace.
The mobile clinic team (Ty Gudel, Jefferson Rabe, Sophie Fowler, Mary Keller and two American physicians who came individually to work with Samaritan's Purse) had a different task to tackle altogether. They would collect everything they would need to completely set up a clinic and head out to a new village everyday. They encountered new obstacles and opportunities everyday and had intimate experiences with patients in their home villages. Some days were based on supporting a congregation, another serviced a shelter village Samaritan's Purse had created, and today they worked with an orphanage and their neighbors. Don't worry- they will be blogging more specifics about their work and experience.
Personally, the patient I will remember most was a little girl and her father. As they came in, it seemed to take so much effort just to walk through the door. The father looked kind of rough, limping with a crutch and some deformity to his face. He was bringing his 7 year old daughter in because she was having headaches and not eating since the earthquake. He told us how her mother had been killed in the earthquake and she talked about her frequently, asking where she was and what happened. The father himself had been injured by a gunshot in this gang heavy slum more than a year before the earthquake and was partially paralyzed. He said he had told the daughter that her mother was dead, but later would then suggest that her mother was possibly in the countryside or something, trying to comfort her. He believed she had lost weight and seemed stressed, worrying about things a lot. The father said he was a Christian, but that the mother was not and did not believe she had gone to heaven and felt this caused a lot of worry for them. No matter how long I searched through my formulary, I knew I would never find a medication to end this worry for them. The daughter would cling to my leg as we spoke and look up at me, never smiling. I couldn't speak her language to comfort her or tell her how much God loved her and I loved her, but I could hold her where her mother couldn't anymore. We (my translator and I) encouraged the father that worry does not come from God but is evil and that he could pray for peace about this issue and for their safety in the future. We told them about His love for them and how only God could bring the peace in their hearts that the father was looking for. I also encouraged the dad that he may be confusing the child about a very sensitive issue with different ideas about the mother's fate and that children do better with some finality. He agreed and said he would go to his church for support. Somehow, with all the medications I gave out over this week, that visit seemed to have the most potential to really help.
- If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. -Phillipians 2: 1-4
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