This excursion is my first time with Haiti and this organization. I have only been here a short while but I can truly see and appreciate the care and effort every member of this team is putting in for the people of Jacmel and the surrounding area. As a third year medical student I am fascinated by the medical […]
Posts in the Voices from the Clinic category:
They Wait Hours, Sometimes Days
Our lives are a journey…we are all given different paths to choose. I am grateful that I said yes to coming to Haiti with FOTCOH. The people have truly been an inspiration. The patience I have witnessed by the people waiting hours, sometimes days with little food or water…the elderly with their walking sticks struggling to […]
It’s Why I Knew I Had to Come Back
A little girl around 2 years old was waiting for another volunteer to return with her dossiers. Using the little French I could remember from high school, I called her “une belle enfant” – “a beautiful child“. Her mother (or other relative) who was holding her smiled. Then the elderly woman behind her said “Et […]
Are You the Mother?
As a woman, I have no country, As a woman, I want no country, As a woman, the whole world is my country.” –Virginia Woolf Meet Joseph. He is a five year old, healthy, little boy from Cyvadier, Haiti. He presented to the clinic today to be seen for scabies with a young woman. I […]
Life Has a New Perspective
I arrived in Haiti on my rookie trip as a medical provider with Friends of the Children of Haiti. As an Anesthesiologist in Bloomington, IL., I was concerned that I would struggle with this new type of medical practice. These concerns evaporated quickly on the first clinic day. Within the first several hours of the first […]
Having Seen What I have, Can I just Walk Away?
It’s hard to drive through Port Au Prince and not be overwhelmed by the wrenching poverty. We take clean water for granted, but in Haiti, that is a luxury and the source of many of their problems. Garbage is piled up everywhere and there is a desperation you sense in the people of the street. […]
They Are Relentless in Their Bravery
We are in the home stretch and on the second day of the second week, sitting at breakfast waiting for clinic to begin, I am excited to go downstairs to visit with all of the people that will come to receive our help today. They are remarkable people: those we are treating, and those translators and […]
Continuing to Make a Difference
This is Jean Benson Lope. He is 11 years old and has been seen at our clinic for several years. Today I took extra time to talk to him and his mom. He was having low back pain and leg pain and was very likely having a sickle crisis. We provided ORS for hydration and then […]
She Waited for Two Days
Camelite was first seen at FOTCOH in May and had a blood pressure of 182/98 and started on medications for her hypertension. She was feeling ill for weeks before coming to FOTCOH. She was seen today and her blood pressure was down to 150/86 and she was feeling much better. She heard about FOTCOH from […]
Abandoned, But Not Alone
On Saturday, one of the patients we saw towards the end of the day was a little baby. He was dressed in a clean onesie and wrapped in a fluffy towel. Out in crowd the baby did not look as tiny as he did once assessed at triage and with a provider. After the baby […]