As many of you already know, I have returned from seven intense days working in a startup, makeshift field hospital with Heartline Ministries on the outskirts of Port au Prince. In my absence, there has been a support network going on via email, Face book, Twitter, Internet blogs, etc. – all of which I knew nothing about. As many of you know, this is all the technology that I have resisted. Now, I want to use this to thank each of you for all your prayers and support during my absence.
Since I’ve been back, I have had to do a lot of processing of what happened to me, and how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, as I was literally thrown into service when I walked through the field hospital door. Right up until I caught the plane home the needs were nonstop. These were the longest seven days of my life, and the shortest seven days of my life. They were the most impacting, the most defining and rewarding days of my life - not only from a medical point of view, but also from a humanitarian point of view.
In the face of this catastrophic event I was blessed to be able to work with other practitioners from all over the United States. They had hearts and dedication like I have never seen for the simple love of others. Our bond is incredible. We will all be friends forever.
I witnessed the hand of God guiding us in all that we saw, experienced, and did. He prepared each of us to go and He got us there together – miraculously. It was clearly Him working in us and through each of us. In Him we were able to endure the magnitude of devastation that happened to these people on January 12. That devastation is beyond description and comprehension. I know that others with whom I served agree with me that coming home was very, very hard to do. Regretting deeply having to leave so much undone is inexpressible, not knowing the end result of our work on the people.
All those trips out into the rubble of the slum areas, every touch we made, in most cases was the only touch of help that these people would have. Every wound was infected. I saw every type of known orthopedic injury known lying out in the street, or brought to us with help, even in wheelbarrows. Again, beyond scripting. It was and is hard to realize that thousands and thousands more were still suffering from all the crush injuries associated with the earthquake. In the field hospital with minimal supplies and no tools, it was Civil War medicine requiring a lot of improvisation. Believe me when I say that I used all 44 years of my ortho training there.
It has been well recognized that even at this level of care, we were saving lives. It was a very humbling experience. The Heartline website tells me that they are still finding these people with major, major injuries - again, a demonstration of the level of this disaster. Think about this: in under a minute, over 250,000 people were injured or crushed to death. Those numbers continue to rise. It was hard for us to wrap our brains around, even seeing it.
Very soon I realized that we saw and treated the outside of people, the physical injuries, but the inside of them, and the scope of their losses then or in their futures, I could not begin to understand or treat. At some point I will return to Heartline’s ongoing ministry there to do what I can.
I did and do realize that it was through the prayer support of my family, my church family, and my friends that I was able to be there for the people of Haiti in a time of catastrophic chaos, and human pain and suffering – and all that continues there.
It is disheartening, appalling for me to see that this human event has fallen off the media radar.
Through your prayers, donations, or supplies people were and are helped. Our results were in positive medical outcomes, and literally saving lives. But all of it means something more when you realize that they had nothing to start with, not even hope. Because I now have a greater understanding of the power of prayer, my request is that above everything else, you pray for the people of Haiti.
With love,
Cliff ~ and Adrienne
“But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Cor. 13:13
CLIFF TREATING A LITTLE BOY
Heartline continues to move on with the field hospital as more patients are coming to us for after care. It is the beginning of the rainy season but an impressive group from Ecola Bible School put up a mega tarp on a frame that they put together out of pvc even as the rain fell lightly. The pieced together tarps we had were leaking but the mega tarp framed cover held back last night's rain from getting the patients wet.
CHECK IT OUT
THE SUPERDOME OF HAITI
FYI:
Heartline has not received government assistance and is paying for the expenses of running this field hospital by your generous giving. Please help us to help other by your giving. Click here to donate. Our commitment to you is that 100% of what you donate will be used in Haiti to continue the ongoing ministry of the Heartline Field Hospital.
John McHoul
Wharf Jeremie is a large slum of tin roofed houses in Port au Prince, which is also the place where the boat from the coastal town of Jeremie comes loaded with people and their produce which is sold at the outdoor market at the wharf.
We for a few weeks had been taking the Heartline truck into the area as we treated the less seriously injured on site and took the more seriously injured back to our field hospital. We stopped going regularly after a medical group from Italy set up a tented treatment center in the area.
But this week Chris Plourde who has been driving the truck took it to Wharf Jeremie and while there we met Margaret, a 59-year-old woman and her son. Margaret had tried to get on the boat going back to Jeremie but was not allowed on because she is very sick. She is quite thin and coughs and shakes and can’t really walk without assistance.
It was at this time that the Heartline truck pulled into the wharf and people told her that the white truck people would help her. Our field people examined her and decided to bring her back to the field hospital. There she was examined and tested with a quickie HIV test and unfortunately it was positive. Our medical people also suspected that she could have TB.
We gave her and her son a couple of cots where they stayed a bit a part from the other patients because of our concern of being so sick and perhaps with advanced TB. Her son was wonderfully attentive and loving to his mother and he assisted in caring for her.
We brought her to a clinic that specializes in caring for those who are HIV positive where she was tested and she tested positive. The clinic said that she also had to have TB test before they would consider any treatment but they did express doubt that she would get any better even with treatment. We told them that we wanted to get her healthy enough to be able to get on the boat to Jeremie where she wanted to go home and die. They doubted that this would happen.
We talked about how we could help her get to Jeremie since she was not allowed to go on the boat for the 12-hour trip to Jeremie. We talked about putting her and her son on one of the jammed packed trucks that make the Port au Prince to Jeremie run, but we questioned how well she would survive the grueling truck ride over the loosely called dirt and rock roads of Haiti. And we weren’t sure if she would even be allowed on the bus. Our last and best option as we could see it would be to see of we could get her on one of the small planes that fly from Port au Prince to Jeremie.
So Tara Livesay contacted MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) here in Haiti to see if we could charter their six passenger plane to take Margaret home to her place of birth where she wanted to live out her last days. And that is what we did.
We (Margaret, her son, Tara, Corkey Cowart, John and the pilot) got on the six-passenger plane in Port au Prince and made the hour flight to the coastal town of Jeremie, where we landed on a somewhat rough runway. Margaret, I’m sure had never been on a plane before but she was simply too sick to even notice or be afraid.
When we got off the plane, the first thing she did was stand of the tarmac and urinate. She was too sick to care and the rest of us who were there including the local policeman and the airport meet the plane guy understood and said nothing. They came over with a wheel chair which surprised me and wheeled her to the lone building standing on the property. We, after saying good-bye, got on the plane and made the flight back to Port au Prince minus Margret.
We of course are saddened that she is so ill but feel that we did the right thing by flying her to her place of birth where she can spend her remaining days with family.
It started with a BOAT that wouldn’t take Margaret and the HEARTLINE TRUCK that brought her to our field hospital to a MAF PLANE that took her home where she could die with the support of her family.
Heartline is making a difference in so many different ways and your support helps us help others.
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We continue to be quite busy in making the Heartline field hospital a place of healing, hope, support, and community. Twice a day it is also a church, as a local pastor, whose daughter is in the hospital comes and holds services. The patients and workers eagerly respond to the spiritual nourishment.
We it would seem should be receiving fewer patients, but the opposite is true as we work with other organizations to take in some of their patients for aftercare. We are busy transporting people back to and from various hospitals and praise God, some to their homes. We recently put the call out for more cots to facilitate our growing patient population.
We recently received a patient from the Comfort Ship that lives at least three hours from our place, but we today or tomorrow will transport her back home. It is a privilege to do so.
Yesterday, I went to our local doctor with a young boy who our docs wanted to have a TB test. When I entered the office, the doc’s wife greeted me, but she was crying. I asked her if she was okay and she told me that her son, has a school in the northern town of Cap Haitian and yesterday the school fell and some students were killed: Four killed, three injured in school collapse in Haiti
HEARTLINE UPDATE
· We over the next couple of days will move the clinic that has been at the Women’s Center to the field hospital, which was the Boys’ Home. Just moving the pharmacy will be involve several pick up truckloads.
· We plan on reopening the Heartline Sewing School on March 1st. The Heartline Sewing Ladies have now been sewing for a couple of weeks but they refuse to sew inside as they are fearful that another earthquake is coming or that strong aftershocks will cause the building to fall. Someone has called the fear tom be inside the new boogeyman in Haiti.
· We continue to have medical and support people coming in and out of Haiti and expect to keep the field hospital open for several more weeks. Your financial support helps us to daily care for, feed, and meet the immediate needs of the patients in our field hospital and to pay the several additions Haitians workers that we have hired to help. CLICK HERE TO DONATE.
· I, Sunday night, during our time of worship, thanked those who have come to volunteer. I thanked them, though hundreds of miles away when the earth shook in Haiti on January 12th, hearing the cries of the injured and responding with hearts of service to touch lives. We are so thankful to God for them.
A GREAT STORY
EDISEN & HIS PAPA
We since February 4th have had a young boy at our hospital named Edisen. This 8 year old boy came to us from another hospital, but he came with no information, such as address, name of parents, etc. So yesterday Lisa Hojara with Renald and Ryan took Edisen to a local TV station and they put him on TV and asked if anyone recognized him. Well today a man showed up who said that he was Edisen’s father and when Edisen saw this man he broke into a giant smile. A father had found his son. Today they left together for their home.
TODAY is way busy at the hospital and it does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon. We have about 35 on site people between the Haitian helpers and the American volunteers that have come in and who are keeping busy at the field hospital.
I got my earthquake shirt and you can get your by clicking here. I am waiting for my Haiti bracelets which you as well can get by clicking here.
NIGHTTIME PICTURES AT THE FIELD HOSPITAL
HELP US CONTINUE TO GIVE QUALITY CARE BY DONATING AT HAITI-RELIEF
It has been one month today since the earth shook here in Haiti and over 250 thousand people died and hundreds of thousands were injured. There has been call to prayer and fasting for today and for the next two days. Today our former boys’ home which is now our field hospital has become a place where well over 100 people met for several hours beginning at daybreak to sing, pray, and fast. It was wonderful to see and to be there. The doctors and nurses still had their jobs to do and between prayers and songs they treated the injured.
We set up a portable sound system and a couple of keyboard players showed up and we had church,
I, for some reason, just felt weary today as it has been a whole month and we are still seeing people with terrible injuries and still going steady from early morning to the evening and receiving more people to our hospital. We have developed a relationship with the Miami Hospital set up in tents at the Port au Prince airport and the U.S. based Comfort Ship and a British medical group called Merlin where we transport patients back and forth. Yesterday some of the Merlin guys were with us for a few hours checking on their patients and when I drove them back to their hotel, they several times mentioned what a good job we are doing and how our medical people are top notch.
I continue to feel that we are just plodding along and I think of the quote by Abraham Lincoln:
“I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.”
THANK YOU FOR HELPING HELP HEARTLINE MOVE FOWARD!
YOUR GIVING HELPS US HELP OTHERS.
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