The Translator Tribute

OCC Coloring Books in Haiti

CURE Intl – Orthopedic Excellence

• In-country logistics coordinator (Mr. Phil Hudson)
• Air and ground transportation
• Shelving units
• Orthopedic surgical equipment
• Surgical nursing staff from their Dominican hospital
• Multiple international volunteer teams
• Volunteer coordination (Erin, Heather, Robbie)

Maranatha here at the Hopital

The Donor’s Dollar

• Diesel $3000 for electricity
• Oxygen $600
• Transport of equipment and supplies $500
• X-ray film and envelopes $750
• Housekeeping, maintenance, & repair supplies $1000
• Lab supplies $500

• Water main $4000
• Translator honorarium (30 people x 6 weeks) $2700
• Shelving $5000
• Generator parts $1000
• Repair of perimeter wall $5000

Sarah Allen MS IV, Update from Haiti:

I feel like I run around all day. Either I’m trying to discharge post-partum patients home, running to the lab with fresh blood samples to make sure we get stat labs, trying to keep the blood pressure down on our pre-eclamptic patient, or our blood pressure up on our malaria patient, or simply translating between the american nurses and haitian nurses. Actually I shouldn’t say simply…it’s incredibly exhausting after awhile! I’m tired today. Yesterday I had the most awesome day. I guess each day just varies. Its quite the challenge to get the Americans to work alongside the Haitian nurses, when they don’t speak the same language. Talking with some of the nurses they were saying they feel really sidelined when all the americans are speaking in english etc. And I don’t blame them…it would be hard for me too if a large group of people came into my workplace and spoke in another language I didn’t understand, and tried to boss me around as if I didn’t know anything. So that’s one of our goals here, to teach the haitian staff to provide top quality care, and to be able to leave this whole thing in their hands when we leave. I hope we’re doing a good job of that, but its definitely not easy. It’s hard when we don’t even understand the system here, and as soon as we grasp on to how things work, another group rotates through, trying to run things a little differently. It’s definitely helpful that we’re here, we only have three ob/gyn doctors here and they take call it seems every night, so we’re for sure taking a load off them. But sometimes its frustrating.

We had a pre-eclamptic patient come in today. After watching what happened to the pre-eclamptic last week who abrupted and lost her baby, I was pretty nervous for this one. The nursing care here is sketchy, and sometimes vitals are taken merely once throughout the night….which can be dangerous, especially when her blood pressures were 220/160 this afternoon. We started her on Magnesium Sulfate, and gave her Hydralazine for the bp…it slowly came down but we were monitoring her very closely this afternoon. I’m somewhat concerned about what will happen during the night shift…

Anyway I’m having so much fun with these girls I’ve made friends with! They’ve been too kind to me…they keep bringing me gifts! Yesterday they brought me three, ripe, juicy mangos. I was in heaven! Today they brought me ice cream. And this evening they forced me to sit down, and braided my hair! It was so fun, my head hurts like crazy but its still fun They also keep trying to force other food on me. I try to refuse, but they get very mad when I refuse. I feel like I should be giving them stuff, not taking things from them. But they keep saying its the least they can do to thank me for my friendship. I don’t really feel like my friendship is that important, but it’s nice to know they appreciate it I guess.

I’m loving just hanging out with all of the people here. Looking back in life, one of the best things I ever did was learn french and spanish. It’s been soo useful! I spent a couple of hours this weekend hanging out with a large group of teenagers, just learning Creole. They get so excited when I put a new sentence together! Then during the whole evening, they ask me about California, and what it’s like to live there. They said they heard we have earthquakes too. They were surprised to find out that I’ve experienced multiple earthquakes, and that they don’t scare me. For them, this was their first earthquake ever. Many people had never heard of such a thing, and had no idea what was going on. They said a lot of people got scared and ran into their homes rather than out into the streets.

That evening as my friend Neerla was leaving, I asked her if she was going home. She looked at me and laughed! She was like, ‘Sarah, I don’t have a home! Remember?’ Oops. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to not have a home to go to in the evening. I’m even spoiled here, sleeping in a sleeping bag on a cot in a busy hallway. One of the nurses I’m working with was telling me how when it rains, she stands up all night, hiding under some sort of shelter, and gets no sleep. Then she has to come into work the next morning, without any sleep. And she, just like so many of the patients and other hospital staff, have no idea how long they’ll be without shelter.

But despite the sadness, most often at the end of the day I feel happy. And from what I can tell, so do they. I’m forever in awe of all of the people here, and I feel so thankful to have made so many beautiful friendships in such a short stay.

We’re making progress

 

 

  

  

Tonight’s Vespers

Tonight at the National Auxiliary Mission Vespers Daniel Westerdahl and I presented the progress going on in Haiti and why our class is so excited about helping the “least of these.”  We are enthusiastic about how God has led us to adopt what is becoming a pivotal hospital in Haiti during the current hardship they are undergoing and for years to come. Afterwards the National Auxiliary presented our class with a check for five thousand dollars. We have raised around seventy-five thousand dollars out of our goal of one hundred thousand dollars by graduation. Although initially we worked with GHI and AHI in raising funds for the earthquake relief effort, we are now returning to accomplish the endowment fund. Please help see success in accomplishing our goal!

Update from Sarah Allen in Haiti: Day 3 and 4

I spent all afternoon treating vaginal infections. Let me tell you, even though I’m going into Ob/Gyn, doing the whiff test is still not my favorite activity. But these vaginal infections are a sign of what kind of conditions the people of Haiti are living in right now. I’m not sure how often they have a chance to bathe themselves, or where they would anyway. If they’re lucky, they’re living in a tent. If they’re lucky. If not, they’re outside, under a tree, by a wall, next to the road, or wherever they can find shelter from the rain. That’s why its impossible to discharge them sometimes, because here at the hospital they have shelter, safety, and food. Who would want to leave?

Martine is another woman we’ve been working with all week. She has one son who is 13 years old, but since then she’s had 5 other pregnancies that she’s lost. Now, at 29 weeks pregnant, she didn’t want to lose this baby again. But with chronic hypertension and superimposed preeclampsia, she was a difficult case. We started her on Magnesium and gave her betamethasone x 2 for fetal lung maturity, but unfortunately her blood pressures remained uncontrolled. This morning, at 5:30, she began to have severe abdominal pain with vaginal bleeding….her placenta was abrupting. She was taken to the OR for a c-section, and a beautiful baby boy was delivered with apgars of 1 and 5, but after bagging him for 2 hours, he was finally left to die at peace. It was an emotional day. We questioned ourselves, what we could have done differently. We questioned the system here, about why things happened the way they did. We organized teaching with the nurses on how to manage hypertension in pregnancy. But it still hurt to see Martine holding her limp baby boy in her arms, sobbing. Nothing we could do now would change that.

I made some friends with some of the young haitian girls today. They’ve kind of latched onto me, craving attention and care. They work here, helping to organize the gynecology clinic and translate. They work for free, it’s completely voluntary. But they do it because they feel safe here. Stephanie, an 18 year old girl, said she likes to come to the hospital because she can forget what it’s like off campus. She can laugh, enjoy her friends, be distracted from what has happened to her world outside. She’s living on the streets, with her mom and 3 younger siblings. She said she was fortunate that none of her family died in the earthquake, but she said it shook her personally so much that the sunday afterwards she gave her life back to God. These Haitians seem to have an amazing faith in God. Each morning, we can hear them singing outside. When the women are in labor, they’re singing songs. It’s like they’ve been through so much tragedy in their lives that God is the only constant thing. It was interesting, they were surprised to find out that I was Adventist, even though we’re working in an Adventist hospital. They thought that no white people were adventist. That might be because a lot of the relief workers here are from all over, very few are actually adventist. But I think it’s also because we have such a different culture. They’re very open about their spirituality, and their faith. I think I have a lot to learn from them.

Yesterday afternoon we went to a small orphanage nearby, and gave hundreds of tetanus and typhoid vaccines. The children lined up nervously, waiting to be shot. We rewarded them with stuffed animals after braving the two shots. After finishing with all of the orphans, people from the street started showing up, asking to receive vaccines. We gave out as many vaccines as we had syringes, but there were still more people waiting. We’re continuing the vaccine campaign each day.

Today at lunch I walked around the tent camps here on the hospital campus, taking pictures. At first I felt somewhat bad, because I didn’t want to just take pictures of their suffering. But these people were so joyful to have their pictures taken, I didn’t feel like I was documenting any suffering at all! One woman had just had surgery on her leg, and she laid on her bed with arms wide open and the biggest smile on her face. I can’t wait to post her picture up. Other amputees gladly had their picture taken. I saw countless young children running around very skillfully on crutches, with big smiles on their faces. Life here goes on, day by day.

I have so much to learn from the people here. I only hope I can give them back a piece of what they’re giving to me.

Sarah Allen MS IV: Juliette – Day 2 in haiti

Her name is Juliette. She’s 38, in her 7th pregnancy, but delivering her 3rd child. She has two older boys at home, 7 and 3. Her husband died in January in the earthquake. She says they were at home, and a wall fell on him. So she’s raising 2 kids on her own, and now with another one on its way. We examine her, and she’s 7 cm dilated. We take her to the delivery room, prepare for a fast delivery since she’s a multiparous woman, and sit there and wait. 15 minutes, 30, an hour, and soon 3 hours go by. She’s not making any progress. We repeatedly check her, and the exam is difficult. Its hard to tell what’s vaginal wall, what’s cervix, and what’s the baby’s head. Thats when we realize….it wasn’t the baby’s head. The ’suture’ line, was the baby’s bottom. The fontanelle was the baby’s rectum. We had a breech position on our hands.

So in the states, to begin with, most people would have some sort of prenatal care, with an ultrasound (there isn’t a single ultrasound around), and the breech position would be known about far in advance. And then, some people are comfortable with breech deliveries, but most prefer to do c-section. The doctor I was working with said she ‘doesn’t do’ breech deliveries. But at the same time this was going on, there was a lady who had hemoperitoneum needing to go straight to the OR, since 2 weeks ago she had had surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, and somehow a sponge was left in her abdomen. All of the other OR rooms were full, so we were left with this breech on our hands. Thankfully, there was a midwife, Terry, around who felt comfortable doing breech deliveries, and she came just at the exact moment that Juliette let out that final scream, meaning it was imminent. Terry delivered the baby’s bottom, then the legs, the torso, the arms, but the head had a hard time coming out. It hadn’t had the time to reshape to the form of the mother’s pelvis since he was breech. But Terry reached up under the baby’s chin, put two fingers in his mouth, and pulled the baby down and out. We laid him on Juliette’s stomach, and she shrieked that sigh of relief, realizing that her agony was over. The baby was limp, and didn’t seem to be breathing however. We bagged him with some oxygen, and soon after he came to. Apgars were 3 and 9.

I sat down and delivered the placenta, which didn’t need much help whatsoever. But since Juliette had been in labor for so long, the uterus was having a hard time clamping down, and kept bleeding. I gave some extra Pitocin, and we also gave some Cytotec to help her. She kept bleeding for quite awhile. I kept checking her vitals to make sure her blood pressure was stable. We had her feed her baby to get the natural pitocin going. And soon there after, her uterus was feeling much more firm, and she was bleeding a lot less.

Then next to her, we had a pre-eclamptic patient whose blood pressures had been 190/110 all afternoon. And in the other room a 7 month pregnant woman with malaria, a woman with a fetal demise of 4 months, and a woman progressing in labor at 6 cm. Waiting in the hallway we had a woman with cellulitis of the breast, being treated with IV antibiotics, and a group of women waiting to be triaged.

So that was my second day in L&D. I have so many other thoughts about being here, about the people, the hospital, the needs, the problems, the beauty etc. But basically what I’ve seen so far, each and every person is a victim of the earthquake. They’re all struggling. We’re having a hard time discharging patients, because they have nowhere to go. The ortho patients especially, since many of them are newly amputees. Haiti isn’t wheelchair accessible. Many are living in the tents here on campus. Others don’t have anywhere to go. And even if they do have a tent, their hygiene is way sub-par. Yesterday in gyn clinic we treated at least 20 vaginal infections. We figure they just don’t have the means to clean themselves properly.

Ok enough for today, I’m sure there will be more to come…