Moving Forward

Update: July 25, 2010

Six months ago Hôpital Sacré Coeur had grown to 420 beds and had just moved the patients from the local schools which had been converted into hospital wards to the hospital tents in preparation for the reopening of the schools for the students. We had almost 100 volunteers a week and were still accepting patients from PAP who required definitive surgery for their injuries. We were so busy trying to obtain supplies, care for the patients, and feed the patients and their families that we couldn’t plan beyond the next day.

  As the weeks turned into months we were amazed that we still had 100 volunteers a week and continued to care for 400 patients and their families. Thanks to the generosity of many individual donors and organizations we were able to find the resources we needed. Our volunteers and staff continued to perform miracles each day and the reputation of Hôpital Sacré Coeur spread throughout Haiti.

  At our last board meeting in June we decided that Hôpital Sacré Coeur  needed to remain at 120 beds and that we could support that doubling of our size. Now we had to plan the renovation and expansion necessary to accommodate that growth. This expansion will not only include an increase in our bed capacity but also a permanent increase in our operating rooms to 3, new delivery rooms, expanded lab, new outpatient clinic space, and a new supply depot with a bar code system to track supplies throughout the hospital.

 Our fully equipped prosthetic lab was delivered in May and we have fit 26 patients with artificial limbs. There are another 50 waiting. To fulfill our mission of training Haitians to care for themselves we have been training local Haitian staff to become prosthetists. We have prosthetists rotating to our hospital each week to work and to teach. Since a large number of the amputees are children they will require refitting over the years as they grow. We will be able to help them thanks to our training program.

  The current census at the hospital is 147 with 74 patients from the earthquake and 73 local patients. We are allowed to remain in the tents until February 2011 so we need to create permanent bed space over the next 6 months to allow us to permanently house 120 patients. Your support has helped us deal with the unexpected challenges of the earthquake and will enable us to continue to provide the needed care to the people of Haiti. Thank you for all of your support and prayers. 

Peter Kelly MD

President, CRUDEM Foundation Inc.

www.crudem.org

Facebook: crudem_haiti