Highlights- waking to breakfast tropical fruit mmm one of my fav treats, mango, pineapple, coffee and juice prepared by ladies at the guest house. Each morning they had an assortment of selections ranging from an scrambled egg mix to cereal, french toast, pancakes, Haitian pourage among other flavorful items. As it would take a bit of planning to get the mobile clinics running with the local clinicians, I headed to the hospital after being picked up to help out in triage. Triage here meant diagnosing and treating, when appropriate discharging generally after prescribing patient’s medications they paid for in the pharmacy. If necessary fluids would be given or additional testing sometimes with labs. There was a small space with one bed, one chair for patients, one bench and a few chairs for staff with a small desk. So patients would at times need to be triaged on the bench in the entrance of the hospital grounds, privacy was not possible in most cases, nonexistent. You just have to get used to everyone sharing everything, space, materials, instruments and time. It is always humbling and puts life in perspective realizing how incredible seemingly fortunate we are to come from an area where there are generally abundant resources. Highlights- treating a young volunteer to cover both typhoid and malaria as she presented with symptoms of both and much of the care given is done empirically. Another case that stands out is a severe trauma that I treated with a lady who’d been driven inside the hospital gates who’d been hit by a truck reportedly, her leg disfigured and a bloody seen it was no time to react just act, the closest thing available to splint her dismantled leg was a cardboard box torn into pieces.

I enjoyed a good meal of Haitian food a vegetable plate so flavorful.
By God’s design, I made 3 connections for mobile clinics 2 ER women docs and a medical students. There was a going away party in the cafeteria at the end of the day for Kim, a volunteer RN who was leaving to return to the states to start an NP program.
It was sweet to see all the support she had it seemed like all the Haitian staff came and they had pastries including patties and cake. I ended the night at the guesthouse talking to Nick, an engineer who’s volunteering at Heartline ministries long-term.