March 1, 2008
Dear Friend of Hôpital Sacré Coeur,
No matter how many times I go to Haiti something always manages to stop me short and send my heart to the middle of my throat. My January trip was no exception.
The beginning of the year found Hôpital Sacré Coeur packed with teams of medical and non-medical visitors; a five member urology team from New Jersey, seven enthusiastic members of a Massachusetts church, five nursing professors from Boston, an international recording artist, the Dean of a prestigious New York massage school, a top notch surgical team from the New Jersey, three engineers from Indiana, an IT specialist from Alaska, several groups from St. Louis that spanned the generations from high school students to well-established business executives, and fifteen medical personnel and parishioners from our nation’s capital. A typical month.
I stood in the courtyard of the hospital campus. The visitors stood out among the three or four hundred Haitians who waited for treatment. Every available limb, shoulder and back of the visitors sported several infants and children. I couldn’t tell you who smiled more, the children or the adults. The laughter and squeals of delight were just as indistinguishable. A moment filled with hot sunshine, laughter and a child’s delight is hard to beat.
Then I spotted Marie Rose, barely six, wide eyes as deep and rich as melted chocolate, royal blue ribbons clipped to her neatly braided hair. Her petite and fragile frame overflowed with energy. I first met Marie Rose the previous afternoon, when she came into the Emergency Room with her mother. Yvette was so heavy with child and in such obvious distress; I found it inconceivable that they had walked the twelve dusty, rock laden miles to get to the hospital. I was equally shocked to learn that her father, Jean-Charles, had died at home three months earlier from a simple, but untreated staph infection.
Within minutes, the Haitian maternity nurses, mid-wife and obstetrician began their assessment and treatment of Yvette. As the list of her medical complications grew so did the urgency and the sobering reality of the horrors the team would probably face, before the mid-day sun disappeared into the night sky. Quietly, politely, taking it all in was 6 year old Marie Rose in her spotless, perfectly pressed white dress.
The staff rushed Yvette into surgery. A particularly complicated C-section was performed and not one, but two, babies were eased from the womb. Though full term, neither was breathing. The story would have ended here, with the woman’s heroic efforts to reach the hospital rewarded with the death of her two babies and, in all likelihood, her own life, except for the visitors. The surgical team from New Jersey just happened to be on hand. Armed with experience and knowledge not immediately available to the Haitian staff, the two chief residents responded quickly and resuscitated both babies and stabilized the mother. A typical day.
As I now watched Marie Rose being twirled about by the hands of a visitor, I realized how dreadfully close she had come to being an orphan today. Yesterday, the hands of visitors literally brought her two new siblings and her mother back from death. Today, the hands of visitors eagerly play with her. By the gracious hand of God, Marie Rose is not one more of the over 600,000 orphans that roam the streets and countryside of Haiti, scrapping out a life of less quality than that of the average American household pet. Her life will still be hard, how can it not be? Her family will live on less than $1 a day. Electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing will remain in her dreams. Education is her only realizable hope provided she is healthy enough to take advantage of it.
nd that’s where the varied hands of Hôpital Sacré Coeur come into play. Promise for Haiti is built on the premise of a healthy Haiti. It has to start there.
Hôpital Sacré Coeur remains committed to the children of Haiti. We start our work before the children arrive. Our Community Health Services Department reaches 150,000 people with vaccinations, pre-natal care, basic hygiene and nutrition training. Lectures and presentations on pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and sexual behavior are given to secondary schools and youth groups in the region. Our hospital pre-natal clinic has seen an annual 20% increase in patients. The Healthy Child Clinic is one of only three sites in Haiti that offers antiretroviral treatment to children. Our on-site Nutrition Center successfully combats malnutrition in the almost forty children a day that it serves. Our Reduction of Maternal Mortality Project has aggressively reached out beyond the hospital walls and has established pre-natal clinics in six villages.
We’ve made impressive inroads. But in a country where only 24% of births are attended by skilled personnel, infant mortality is 7.4%, and only 71% of the children have access to safe drinking water, our work has barely begun. Giving the Marie Rose’s of Haiti the promise of a healthy and hopefully better future is a task that needs more hands. Yours.
During this Lenten season, as you contemplate how the outstretched hands of Christ served the world, I pray you will response to that immeasurable gift of love and life by offering your own hands, hearts and resources to the children of Hôpital Sacré Coeur. Together, let’s work to make moments filled with hot sunshine, laughter and the delight of healthy children typical for Haiti.
Thank you and God bless you!
Peter J. Kelly, M.D.
President
P.S. We desperately need more staff Obstetricians, Gynecologists and Pediatricians. The average salary is $18,000 a year. Please consider whether God is calling you or your group to sponsor one or more of these greatly needed physicians. Thank you.
