St. Marc Hospital

So I'm currently laying in a hammock, covered in a neon pink mosquito net, hanging way too high up because we adjusted the ropes earlier, listenng to a church service located nearby to the property. I can hear just about every word. It still is so amazing to me that although these people have next to nothing, some haven't eaten in days, but yet they worship God so whole-heartedly and enthusiastically. The first time I went to a church service in Haiti it just blew my mind. If only we could worship 1/5th of what they do. When they sing, I instantaneously get goosebumps.

 If only we had one ounce of their faith.

I picked up Sara French and Sarah Orsheln yesterday at PAP airport. I've only met Sarah French once prior to her coming out here when she interviewed me on Fox 61. How awesome is it that she and her friend were not only willing, but wanting to come to Haiti to serve. A lot of people say they want to come, many with the best of intentions, but these 2 ladies who barely know me hopped on a plane, took off from work, and it is so apparent how excited they are to be here.  I'm exhausted so I'll need to finish this blog at some point tomorrow. Sweet Dreams...

Saturday August 13th
     We woke up around 5am today to head to St. Marc hospital.  The last time I had been there was nearly four years ago now and I was praying some improvement had taken place.  We arrived at the hospital in record time, since traffic is usually standstill by about 9am.  Dr. Franco explained that today would be more of an observational day because he wanted to talk with the Director of the hospital to try to arrange having the children that are left at the hospital to be sent to Go-Haiti.  We had also packed 4 pieces of luggage full of extra donated medical supplies that we would not be able to use on this particular trip.
We started off in the Female Internal Medicine Unit, where about 1/3 of the patients were suffering with end-stage AIDS.  One woman was so severely deteriorated that she was in a coma, and couldn't respond to any outside stimuli.  Dr. Franco tried to speak with her and see if we could do anything for her, but she didn't respond.  Almost all of the IV's were either not connected, the bag was empty, the line infiltrated, or just totally useless.  Myself, Amy, and Dr. Franco adjusted a couple that we saw- but it was again very discouraging.  There were no physicians present on this unit when we were there so we took the liberty to adjust things accordingly as needed.
We then went into the post-op unit where there were a lot of orthopedic patients.  Many patients had pins and different devices attached to their limbs, and were in a lot of pain.  I noticed a woman with an empty chlorox bottle filled with sand, attached to a string, which was attached to a wooden board on her ankle...kind of?  What the heck kind of contraption was that....oh wait...that was supposed to be traction!  The weighted container was laying on the bed, providing no type of traction at all- and the woman's bandage hadn't been changed in weeks.  Dr. Franco went over to try and adjust the traction but there was just no fixing it- so we removed all of it and started again from scratch.  The woman's leg was so thin it was just bone- and the gauze had melted onto her skin since the hospital had no AC and no fans.  There were flies everywhere.  The unit had no tape to reinforce the bandage, so we used Sara's neon yellow duct tape to put over the ace bandage wrap.  Yes, that's right- duct tape in a hospital to apply to a sand weighted empty chlorox bottle which was supposed to be traction.  Re-read this again, try to picture it, and take it all in.  It's completely unreal.  From a medical perspective- totally unacceptable and alarming.
    We then headed over to the pediatric unit.  I always struggle with this one.  These children are so helpless and so innocent, and the fact that they have no choice but to lay in the 110 degree hospital while getting next-to-know care breaks my heart.  We talked with a young boy that they suspected had Cholera- he had a fever, abdominal pain, headache, and diarrhea for the past several days.  Again, his IV was infiltrated, his fluids were not running, and they were doing absolutely nothing for him.  It takes everything in me not to take these kids back go Go-Haiti and do something- I don't know what, just something.  I'm still figuring that part out.  I dream of the day that we have a state-of-the-art medical hospital with sterile tools, and well-trained physicians and nurses, and can provide optimal care for minimal or no charge at all.  Where there will be an air conditioned room that can provide some type of relief for these individuals suffering, and meals provided for them daily.  Currently, if a patient doesn't have a family member bring them food on a daily basis, they don't eat, and eventually starve to death- even the children.  From my perspective, the hospital is a place to go to to die, not to get better.  People go there with false hopes and are never really told that they are getting maintenance care- if even that.
The hardest part of the day was going to I guess what they would consider the Pediatric Premature Infant Unit.  I have never seen such small babies.  They didn't even look real.  A father was there next to his baby's crib and told us the story of how how wife passed away during labor, and how he has three other children at home and is having great difficulty taking care of them.  The baby was born very early, and has been hospitalized since birth.  This is a picture of his son:

Across from this baby, was another premature baby that was probably not even a pound.  They believed he was not only premature, but that his mother had AIDS when she gave birth to him, and probably had no prenatal care.   Here is how tiny he was:

This baby was under a heat lamp, on top of being in 110+ degree weather, and the temperature of the lamp wasn't regulated at all.  He was  not hooked up to any oxygen, the IV line wasn't patent, and he struggled to breathe with every breath he took.  We attempted to try and feed him through a syringe...

He had absolutely no sucking capability at all, and consumed next to nothing.
Again, I silently racked my brain as to what could be done.  Could we try to see if we could take him back to Go-Haiti to provide better care?  Wait...could we provide better care?  Well, I know we wouldn't put him under a heat lamp and he'd get tons of love and attention.  No, Kim you can't just take a baby out of a hospital.  Okay...so what next?  There was no other answers I could come up with.  Again, I held back the tears because this baby didn't appear like he had much longer to live at all.  I watched his chest rise and fall, and him struggle each and every time it did.

I pray that when I return to St. Marc again that this child would have taken a miraculous turn for the better.
Acts 4:30 "Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders....."

Here are some pictures of a few of the other babies at the hospital:

This little girl is suffering from a kidney disorder, and just from looking at her, you can tell she has a crazy amount of excess fluid volume.  She was sitting on a piece of wood outside the hospital, not being seen by anyone, and just looked so distraught.  I went over to try and talk to her, but she was very resistant.

Keep all of these children and patients at St. Marc Hospital in your prayers. There is so much work that needs to be done there, and not enough money or help to even come close to achieving it.
We drove about 3 hours back to Go-Haiti, and when we arrived Duvall was teaching the kids a Bible story.  It immediately brought a smile to my face because he is so animated and the children were so into it.

Well, I'm done blogging for the day.  There's a serious soccer tourament going on outside, Gaypaye is goalie and has already sustained one injury that he came running in here and we bandaged, and I should go monitor the kiddos.
Keep us all in your prayers.  Looking forward to picking up Jon Cooke from the airport tomorrow to join the team :)