Haiti Jan. 19, 2013

Last day for a mobile clinic for me on this trip before I would pass the baton to the Haitian clinicians/ staff and others helping until I can return. The clinic in Cite Soleil went very well, although it felt like the patient flow was never ending. By mid-day or so, I had a total of 6 docs helping, Haitian staff outside entertaining the children with soccer I think and there was a visiting artist who’d flown in from NY, she was doing paintings with the children which was fabulous, a leader from the community took time to pass out the goodie bags to children that I’d brought. The pharmacy, I volunteered in went well, it was super busy throughout the afternoon. By the days end, we had to have the doctors come and start filling the prescriptions they had written themselves. We had to have a couple of trucks bring us as there were so many people, Nick who works at the guesthouse had a chance to visit the clinic and see us in action after he dropped us off. Fortunately, I’d had a chance to stop by the store earlier and stock up on water bottles and Haitian pastries so we had snacks to get us through the afternoon. We had to unfortunately, cancel the other clinic due to time constraints. It was the perfect way for the Haitian clinicians to have a start to clinics to carry on after I leave. By about 5 pm a couple of the doctors needed to get back to the trauma hospital so I had to have the driver take a separate trip to get them and others back. The driver did not want to take two trips and for a few hours or less he did not return. It felt like a test of faith cause we were in Cite Soleil after dark and he initially was not willing to come back. After several phone calls to others we were unable to secure another ride. One of the guys who was with us was a friend of his and he talked to him so he came back to get us all. We brought a little girl back with us and her mom to the hospital who one of the doctors felt like needed additional medical care. The girl was seen in triage at the hospital. Her and her mom were given cash to get back to the camp the next day. The driver, Gideon from the hospital dropped me off at the guesthouse.