Healing from Haiti

1. There is an overwhelming smell of desperation throughout the city: acrid, fetid smell of burning plastic, wood fires and human waste. Healing from Haiti I am so inspired and moved by the bright and luminous presence of our patients. They wear their Sunday best--children adorned in beautiful white dresses and women accessorized in bold dangling earrings--to stand in long lines waiting to be examined; to receive a few weeks supply of medicine; and to get the attention and love that they deserve and desperately seek. Conditions are basic: only one gallon-sized pot of boiling water, 3 clean towels, and shoe strings for a baby delivery.

2. I awake to a rooster at 4:30 am. I'm paralyzed with fatigue and amazement in my warm down-filled green sleeping bag. I am indoors but cannot stop thinking about the millions of people sleeping on the streets of Haiti, unprotected from the natural elements, mosquitoes, and epidemic disease. Every morning, I roam the halls of the hospital in my blue scrub pajamas wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses and a headlamp. I desperately need a functioning bathroom with running water and flushing toilet, but it will have to wait.

3. I aim my headlight into an empty patient room, and I am greeted with flying thumb-sized cockroaches and a scurrying grey mouse the size of a rat. There is too much work to be done to leave room for fear, so I quickly snap into reality and start my day. For the next 2 weeks, I am medical director of the family medicine clinic at Operation Hope (in partnership with ACTS World Relief). I coordinate medical volunteers at our clinics, both here and in surrounding rural communities. Some of our patients have not had accessible health care in almost 10 years. I've made a “wish list” of medicines and supplies for donors and volunteers and met with other NGOs, Haitian government leaders, and US military personnel in hopes of procuring food, water, and tents for our patients.

4. We start seeing patients at 8:30 am at our on-site clinic, situated across the street from the Adventist Hospital. Then, two groups of 10-20 medical providers load onto an old rickety school bus and head out to the surrounding community by 10:00am. Today a group of us go to CitéSoliel, a densely populated area filled with the poorest of the poor, in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. The second team goes up the mountain to a convent owned by the Congregation des Petites Soeurs de Sainte Therese de L’Enfant Jesus. Between the local and mobile clinics, we care for almost 2,000 patients daily. We've provided physical, emotional, and spiritual healing for close to 17,000 patients since the earthquake.

5. My workday ends around 6:00 pm when we wrap up our patient care, and I head on my second adventure of the day to find running water for my daily shower. It could be from a spigot on the road, a hose in the garden, and or faucet in a cleaning closet in the operating room. This is the time when I have dedicated a few minutes to myself—to collect my thoughts and try to keep it together. It is the time when I cry uncontrollably, hoping the water will purify my sins and comfort me as I pray for God to give me the strength, wisdom, and courage to help even more patients tomorrow in this war zone called Carrefour.