Haiti life has both surprise and tragedy

Last Thursday, we had a surprise visit at our clinic from several Haitian Public Health Department personnel from Port-au-Prince. They were there to inspect our present facility (our little tin-roofed house), evaluate the future clinic site and assess the need for medical care in the area. It represented the final step in a process that…

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Hope for Haiti Banquet update

Hope for Haiti – our first ever FHH banquet – is fast approaching!  The banquet will be held on Saturday, April 4th at the Wisconsin Club in Milwaukee, WI.  For tickets, please email Tracy at friendsforhealth@gmail.com. Plans are well underway and all signs point to a very fun event!    In support and celebration, please join…

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Happy New Year!

Happy belated New Year! I trust that you all had a happy holiday season. I spent ten days in Milwaukee helping out in two Emergency Departments over the holidays, so I was able to experience the snow and cold of the Midwest once again. I was glad to return to the warmth of Haiti again…

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Little Did I Know!

This past weekend I had to make a quick trip into the capital city of Port-au-Prince. We periodically ship supplies to Haiti through a mission organization in Grand Rapids, Michigan called Rays of Hope for Haiti. They pack up containers, ship them to Haiti, clear them through customs and put them in a warehouse in…

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The Little Things in Life

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that we take for granted, like electricity and running water. In our little “house clinic” in Gatineau, we had neither electricity nor water. On cloudy days or in the late afternoon, it was difficult to see our patients or write on their charts due to lack of light…

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Clean-up, Clinic, and Containers

It’s hard to believe it’s October already! Hurricane season will soon be over and we’re praying no more major storms will head our way. Clean-up efforts are still going on in the areas north of Port-au-Prince, which were the hardest hit by the four hurricanes that struck Haiti. The roads leading to Cayes, in the…

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Waiting for the next storm!

Yesterday turned out to be a busy day for us. It rained during the night and was overcast in the morning, so we were undecided about whether to attempt the trip up the mountain to our clinic. After hearing from local people that the road was passable, we loaded the truck with our supplies and…

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More Storms, More Rain, and Flooding

We’ve had another 24 hours of high winds and drenching rains as Haiti felt the effects of nearby tropical storm Hannah. The rain started around midnight Monday night and when we got up yesterday morning, our flat roof had several inches of water on it, the storage depot was flooded and there were several tree…

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Hurricane Update

We’re presently reaching 48 hours of constant rainfall here in Jeremie, as a result of tropical storm Gustave. We were actually up at our clinic on Tuesday afternoon when it rained up there, but when we came down the mountain, there was no rain in Jeremie itself. That evening, the winds started, followed by rain,…

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Another Emergency!

This afternoon we took another pediatric patient to the general hospital in Jérémie. We had seen him, a three-year old boy, last Thursday with fever and malaria. Since his father died and his mother lives in Port-au-Prince, he lives with his grandmother in a community near the clinic. We told the grandmother that if he…

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