Partners in Health is building a state-of-the-art teaching medical facility in Mirebalais in Haiti’s underserved Central Plateau.
My niece Annie helped design the waste and water treatment systems of the project as part of her engineering internship with Northeastern University, and will be joining the Partners in Health group upon graduation. It’s so inspiring to see this wonderful project coming to fruition and to know that she’ll be part of it.
Here is a talk I gave last week to our hospital auxiliary association, mostly made up of retired volunteers. They give us so much, and this is my tribute to them.
Capacity, utility and volunteers
Thank you for letting me speak to you tonight. It is an honor. I have today been at two different ends of the medical world . Today at lunch, I spoke to a Christian Medical Student’s association at USC in Columbia, SC. And now, I am honored to speak to you, who do so much to keep the hospital functioning by your gift of volunteerism.
Tonight I want to talk about capacity and functionality. About utility and usefulness. In preparing to do so, I began to think about how I became the way I am, and my mind wandered to ancestry. I suppose that ancestry has much to do with who we are, though I doubt it is the sole determinant. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
She’s tweeting her medical mission in Haiti. So tragic are the unmet medical needs of these people. From Doc Gurley:
Saw an alone 9-month-pregnant 19 yr old. No birth kit, no string for the cord, no plan for who would be with her. Gave supplies+discussed how to ask helper to wash hands. Nothing sharp&clean for cord so gave scalpel. Acted out birth, w/handwashing.
Also saw woman with overwhelming postpartum uterus infection. Someone used hands at delivery to pull out pieces of placenta.
Saw 14yrold girl w/months of excruciating pain, mass in her lower belly, wasting. Ruptured appy? Tumor? Left her w/ narcotics, antibiotics.
Also, women do not have menstrual protection supplies:
I’ve been asked, if there are no pads, what do women use? In the cases I saw, one used a page of a magazine & another a dinner napkin.
God bless you, Doc Gurley, and the members of your team for all you’re doing. What can we do to help?
*This blog post was originally published at tbtam*
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