Haiti Day 4

(Community Matters) Yesterday with new friends touring Partners in Health facilities in the districts north of PaP, in the mountains and along the coast. Zanmi Lasante (Creole for Partners in Health aka PiH) is the difference between substandard, costly & scare medical care and higher quality, free to inexpensive WHO standard of care. I bet you can measure their contributions in Haiti by years of life expectancy.

As we were emerging from touring the St Marc’s hospital operating room area there was a lot of commotion in the court yard, lots of people around a taptap. Strange that a taptap allowed thru the gates into the courtyard. Dr Almazar explained it was probably an auto or motorcycle accident. Then we noticed the bloodied accident victim on the gurney. Relieved when we saw him wheeled to the emergency room.

On our way to the AIDS ward, the commotion started up again as they wheeled the gurney back out. It didn’t make sense until Dr Almazar explained the victim hadn’t made it. His body on the gurney, head covered with his bloody t-shirt, was a reminder of Haitians’ needs beyond the earthquake.

Unlogically, touring the women’s’ & men’s’ AIDS wards, seeing very sick patients in hospital beds, was somehow reaffirming & quieting. These patients were attended by family, they’d now be receiving AIDS protocols. t
They call it the Lazarus Effect, how such sick people “come back from the dead” once diagnosed and started on treatment.

The accident victim on the gurney was also accompanied by family or friends – 25 or 30. There’s strong community here.

PiH started in the early 80s when Paul Farmer, with a newly minted medical degree, moved to Haiti to serve the very poor. They’ve grown into an extraordinary medical provider in this country and several others, usually working with country health ministries to significantly raise the quality & quantity of healthcare. Today in Haiti, PiH has over 5k workers (over 2k community-based healthcare workers) with only about a dozen ex pats.

I joined their in-progress tour: Kim Marie Evans & Steve Waters are major donors and supporters from CN & NY. PiH CFO Donella Rapier and Dev officer Kristin Hubig flew in with Kim Marie & Steve from Boston/NY. We were joined in Mirebalais by Kate Greene, the Haiti Finance Mngr. What a remarkable young woman; a Yale MBA fluent in French & Creole, once also in Mandarin, who worked as a nonprofit consultant until joining PiH where she now bridges finance & programs.

Haiti doesn’t have the financial resources (an entirely separate blog posting I’ll get to) to provide quality healthcare in needed quantities. PiH builds on what the state is able to offer, often taking over administration of hospitals and clinic facilities – topping off salaries so medical workers can afford their jobs, adding staff, exponentially increasing capacity, sourcing Rx and attracting additional funding.

I remember reading about the introduction of medical services to Appalachian America and to the poorest areas populated primarily by Blacks & Mexicans. It increased their life expectencies dramatically, allowing entire populations of people to obtain completely new standards of living, to become much more productive citizens, contributing greatly to the broader society. I’m leaving Haiti this morning thinking not only of the humanitarian reasons to support the work here but also of our self-interest in supporting these beautiful, industrious, artistic, artisan people who’s forefathers overthrew their slave masters and became the second democracy in the Western Hemisphere. posted from my blackberry.