HAITI: Day 3-- Clinic in the Mountains

06-21-11

Before heading out for our first day of clinic, Marie offered to give us a tour of the Akamil nutrition factory and the new Medishare compound.

Akamil is a legume and micronutrient enriched millet. The main goal of the Akamil plant is to improve malnutrition in the area. The plant also aims to provide microbusiness to the community through women precooking the millet before selling it as well as providing jobs as factory workers for local community members. Right now, the plant is funded through outside grants, but the goal is for it to be self-sustainable. One of the ways they hope to accomplish this is through mass production and sale in larger grocery stores in Port Au Prince. Other parts of the plant are used for chlorine packet production (for treatment of water) and water container buckets. These buckets have a spicket and no handle, so they can only be used as the family’s water container.

The new medishare compound is very impressive and should be completed with in the next year. Not only will it include updated living facilities, it will also include a conference area where Medishare can host potential donors and collaborators.

We then headed out to clinic in an extremely remote part of Haiti. We had rented 4WD vehicles for our trip, and the journey to the clinic site made me see why – we traveled through rivers, across rocks, through mud, and up mountains. A little nerve racking, but our drivers were very skilled.

When we finally reached our clinic site, we found ourselves in a local church that was home to quite a few tarantulas. The presence of people scared them away soon enough and we started setting up our supplies. I spent the day in the pediatric clinic with Allison (the other pediatrician on our trip). Our first patient was a little girl with a severely burned arm. We debrided the wound and gave her mother some ointment and additional dressing to keep taking care of it. We also gave her some antibiotics to keep any skin infection away. The rest of the cases mostly consisted of stomachaches, diarrhea, and upper respiratory infections. We had to leave a bit earlier than expected due to rain (and the extreme roads that would become worse in this weather).

I left clinic feeling sad for these people in these destitute conditions and thinking, “Are we really making a difference?” Sure, we treated 1 acute case – the girl with the burns, but the other problems are just symptoms of larger societal problems – access to healthcare, access to clean water, access to education, access to foods with proper nutrition, and access to proper housing.