HHH Helps Haitians after Hurricane Floods

By Al Ingersoll, CP

"Men anpil chay pa lou" "Many hands make the load lighter" is a Haitian proverb used by many Healing Hands for Haiti staff and team members and exemplifies what we are striving towards.

The long-term goal of the Healing Hands for Haiti Foundation is to have well-trained Haitians providing rehabilitation medicine. Volunteers from the United States and Canada are working towards this goal by educating Haitians in all aspects of rehabilitation medicine. Rehabilitation medicine providers encompass anyone providing care to disabled people and might include: physicians, physical and occupational therapists, prosthetists, orthotists, orthotic and prosthetic technicians, wheelchair technicians, speech therapists, nurses, and social workers.

An estimated eight million Haitians share the western one-third of the island Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. Haiti is located in the Caribbean 500 miles southeast of Miami, Florida, and 50 miles west of Cuba. Healing Hands for Haiti (HHH) has a beautiful rehabilitation medicine clinic, classrooms, and guesthouse on four acres in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, the capital. The guesthouse sleeps 30 people dormitory-style, has 24/7 security, a swimming pool, and a full-time house staff providing meals, housekeeping, and laundry. We are not roughing it!

I traveled to Haiti for the fourth time January 16-30, 2006, and spent time in two different regions evaluating an old orthotics and prosthetics facility and helping to educate Haitian orthotic and prosthetic technicians. Three days during the first week were spent in the northern city of Gonaïves, an ocean port city of 300,000 surrounded by mountains, that was devastated by September 2004's Hurricane Jeanne. The rain-swollen rivers and mudslides washed most of the cities poorly constructed cement block houses and business off their foundations, killing an estimated 1,500-2,000 people. The city has since rebuilt, unfortunately utilizing the same construction methods near the same uncontrolled rivers, and experts warn the same result will happen. The second week was spent working with a team of Minnesotan rehabilitation professionals at the HHH clinic.

Reopening Clinic in Gonaïves For over 20 years Gonaïves had a thriving orthotics, prosthetics, and pedorthic laboratory run by an elderly French priest and managed by Mondestin Jean Severe, a French-trained Haitian certified prosthetist-orthotist and his staffof technicians. This one-level, very spacious, wheelchair-accessible facility on the government hospital grounds was closed four years ago after two French aid organizations stopped funding. Mondestin's hopes of reopening the facility were completely dashed two years later when the priest died of a heart attack rescuing people during Hurricane Jeanne. Mondestin amazed me when he said he had never been visited by US or Canadian prosthetists and /or orthotists! Gathering dust in a small, spider-filled, mud-caked storage room are all the tools, equipment, and supplies for fabrication of prosthetics, orthotics, custom shoes, canes, and crutches. The mud had been over five feet deep in this room!

With the goal of obtaining permission to reopen this facility, Gina Duncan, HHH executive director, Johny Saint Louis, HHH project coordinator, and I met with Gonaïves health ministry, church, and hospital officials along with local physicians and the support association. For approximately one year after the floods, Gonaïves received international support to help with cleanup and rebuilding. These aid organizations have since left, leaving hundreds of thousands of people dependent, causing local officials to be suspicious of outsiders coming in offering promises of help.

Dr. Camille Cantave directs the Gonaïves and 13 provincial health ministries, providing the most basic health care. To prevent a reoccurrence of the cycle of dependency, Dr. Cantave insisted that we work with the local physicians, hospital, church, and government officials. Knowing its importance and having worked like this in Port-au-Prince for eight years, we were delighted to hear this request. At the end of many meetings, we were granted permission to reopen the lab! With new friends, their contact information, photos, and the all-important permission document, we drove the five hours back to Port-au-Prince, knowing how much work and how many trips back to Gonaïves we have in front of us.

Training Technicians On January 21, the 19-member Minnesota team of Healing Hands for Haiti arrived and the second half of my two weeks began. Rick Miller, CO, from Prosthetic Labs of Rochester, brought his years of experience to help me teach four young full-time Haitian orthotic and prosthetic technicians. Eager for knowledge and a helping hand, they always schedule the toughest patients for visiting prosthetists and orthotists. The diagnoses and conditions we treat are diabetes, severe foot deformities, club foot, foot drop, Blount's disease, cerebral vascular accident, cerebral palsy, hip disarticulation prosthesis, above- and below-elbow prostheses. Transfemoral amputations are frequently needed because of the difficulty people have reaching a hospital, a lack of quality medical care, and an inability to pay for quality care. We are working to help Haitians change that.

For more information Healing Hands for Haiti, please visit our website, www.healinghandsforhaiti.org , or contact me at AIngersoll@Winkley.com or by calling 763.546.1177. I recommend joining an existing team for your first trip, and to help offset costs, ask your employer to donate your time off and family and friends can donate to Healing Hands for Haiti on your behalf. Becker Orthopedic, Knit-Rite, Otto Bock, Propet, SPT Technology, and Winkley Orthotics and Prosthetics all deserve thanks for their incredible generosity.

Tips for Traveling to Developing Nations What I have learned traveling to developing nations:

Always stay in touch with your family! Cyber cafes are everywhere in the world. Always try the local cuisine. Ask your travel clinic for remedies in case of intestinal disagreements. Always seek out people who have been there before to help mentor you. They will provide one or 100 tidbits of information that you will use. Always bring sunscreen, a hat, good shoes, and sunglasses. Laundry services are usually available. $1 or $5 means nothing to you but might feed a family for a day or a week. Always ask about local politics, but never express your opinion, especially about United States politics. Try to learn the local language, money and customs. My biggest struggle is learning language! Ask how you can help. Al Ingersoll, CP, is a prosthetist at Winkley Orthotics & Prosthetics in Golden Valley, Minnesota, and lives in Minneapolis. He can be reached at AIngersoll@Winkley.com

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