An Extraordinary Time…

What You Accomplished is Amazing!
Today is a typical day at Hôpital Sacré-Coeur. Over its course, 500 patients sit 6 deep on one of several benches waiting for their appointment in the Notre Dame Outpatient Clinic, dozens more straddle atop walls or lean against posts. The pharmacy line curves out the door and around several corners. The lab clerks bustle order after order to technicians who run test after test nonstop. The emergency room staff tends to a steady stream of trauma. The fully booked operating rooms send patients to recovery wards, where beds remain constantly filled.

Thanks to your generosity, last year nearly 100,000 people visited the hospital and engaged in over 430,000 transactions seeing medical professionals, having lab tests and getting prescriptions.

No wonder a typical day at Hôpital Sacré-Coeur is busy and packed with people. No wonder the HSC staff seems in perpetual motion intent on their healing tasks.

What brings people to Hôpital Sacré-Coeur today however is anything but ordinary. A trio of calamities has converged into a perfect storm: the most serious drought in 15 years, the likely 4th consecutive year of crop failure and a drastic weakening of the Haitian gourde. The average person is powerless to control these looming horrors — that could afflict any country — but they certainly feel the effects. Food is scarce, potable water is often unavailable and prices across the board have soared.

As one Haitian said, “The money we do earn, can’t respond to our needs.”

 
You Can Imagine…
The heart wrenching frustration. You work hard all day making an honest living. You go to buy food for your family and find near empty shelves and vendors’ carts; what is available costs more than you made. On your walk home (who can afford public transportation now?), you notice fewer cooking fires, because few people have anything to cook.

You do notice more women and small children from nearby towns hauling heavy buckets of water — their village water supplies ran dry. The local mango trees have been picked clean and even the compost and garbage piles have been purged of remotely edible materials. At least you have your health…for now.

Without proper nutrition and adequate amounts of clean water, immune systems breakdown, health issues turn more serious, and, yes, people — our friends and neighbors — die. We’re seeing the effects of this prolonged crisis. Clothes hang more loosely on adults and the eyes of the children don’t sparkle with energy as much as they did even six months ago. Bodies and emotions under stress require greater tending and monitoring.

As Sister Ann retells: This morning as I walked to the hospital bringing packs of Mamba to children suffering from malnutrition, I saw a poor widowed grandmother take a big bunch of cooking bananas (plantains) from a tree to feed her seven orphaned grandchildren. But to her horror and mine, when she sliced through the skin of the bananas, she noticed they were covered in white slime and were dried up. I was so sorry for the poor woman who had tended these bananas for many weeks. Deep in my heart I felt tremendous gratitude for our generous donors because I was able to help this poor family with rice and beans, which certainly brought the smile back to the grandmother’s face.

You are Part of the Solution
At CRUDEM and Hôpital Sacré-Coeur, we don’t wring our hands in the face of despair; we roll up our shirt sleeves, apply our many Haitian and U.S. resources and find viable solutions. In the face of poverty, we provide employment: steady, livable wages that support almost 350 staff, who in turn help support extended, multi-generational families in their communities.

 
In Haiti, people sacrifice and share. And, those salaries pump money back into the local economy. In turn, HSC employees work hard, day and night, to provide some of the finest healthcare in Haiti.

It’s a Choice
The choices we make shape the kind of world we live in. We choose to see the world one face at a time. Hôpital Sacré-Coeur helps people who have stretched to the max to help themselves.

Our patients are not people in search of an easy hand out; they are dignified, hardworking people in need of a leg up to make it through another day of extraordinary challenges.

Like you, every morning, Haitians get up to face the unknowns of the day. The difference is that what the typical Haitian faces today are anything but ordinary: extreme, character testing challenges — one piled on top of another. The fortitude, adaptability and courage it takes for the average Haitian to make it through another day is awe inspiring.

You Have the Power
With the flick of your pen or the click of your computer mouse, you can positively change — at times even save — lives. There in the ordinariness of your day — a day filled with commuter traffic, grocery shopping, car pools and business meetings — you can do something truly extraordinary and powerful. You do not have to run for national office, build an empire, invent the newest trending app, or pass legislation to reach the heights of achievement. You do have to hear that still small voice, feel that slight tug on your heart or see yourself in the circumstances of another. And then, you need to claim your considerable power and put it to good use.

A day when they won’t dread the worst when their child wakes up with a fever or their wife has severe abdominal cramps. We can’t make it rain or fix the currency issues, but with your continued support, we can provide easy access to quality healthcare and offer precious employment to dedicated professionals who routinely give back to their communities. With your support we can keep people healthy and alive… as we have done successfully for over 30 years.

Thank you for taking a few moments out of your day, to make a donation. Every dollar counts. Every dollar has power.

With our deepest appreciation and gratitude for YOU,