Words by Emily
Dr Nelson's morning talk included excerpts form a memoir of someone who worked with Mother Theresa, and he ended with the above quote.
Becky and I decided to go across town to visit Toby Salz, our UVMC ED physician who was volunteering at the General Hospital in Port au Prince for 5 weeks. We took Jimmy, our interpreter who had been raised in the US and speaks American English. Due to some unfortunate circumstances involving our legal system, he'd been deported back to Haiti after 26 years in the US. We took care of him when he showed up in the ER at the Hopital writhing in pain from a kidney stone. He was so happy to be around Americans again that he is volunteering and hoping to work his way to a hired position. We took a Tap Tap (small trucks with seats in the back, colorfully painted). The General Hospital is considerably larger then our Hopital Adventiste d’Haiti but similar, as both hospitals are under equipped, understaffed, and caring for seriously ill patients. Toby has been the acting medical director of the ER there, as he has been there the longest, and is coordinating the withdrawal of the international volunteers. The plan is resumption of exclusively Haitian staff, a process which was not going smoothly.
We drove by the palace, still a crumbled ruin, slated for rebuilding at some point, to be paid for by another country - Belgium?. We pushed our way onto a crowded Tap Tap to ride home after walking through the degraded and trash-lined streets. The people were friendly, I never felt frightened or threatened in any way, but was still relieved to see the white gates of the hospital grounds.
Our last day was a flurry of working in the urgent care clinic and helping the new family practice doctors get oriented. They hit the ground running. I went to the pediatric nursery one last time to say goodbye to the babies and spent some time trimming Sara's fingernails. We spent an hour on the steps of the hospital waiting for our driver, the interpreters couldn't get their fill of the beautiful nurses of the Ukiah team. I know for all of us, the Haiti experience will remain some of our most moving memories and hopefully will result in some long lasting friendships.
Words of Becky
Brianna and Oscar from our lab arrived. Their Thursday arrival was helpful as it allowed us to show them the ropes and share whatever knowledge we'd been able to scrape together.
Our last day at the Hopital was bittersweet. David, Melanie, Mike, Dale, and Brad left early in the day, we all got up early for a group photo. Talk about a great team building experience that our hospital will surely benefit from. Linda, Gurpreet, Becky, and Emily put in a few more hours of work as help was needed. We had a wonderful send-off from the remaining staff and the translators. What a great group of people. I will be forever changed by this trip to Haiti. A week is not enough time, I fear that I may have gotten more than I gave.
Last 2 photos:
Emily and Becky find Toby in Haiti
The Morrisons in their luxury digs
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