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This month marks the two year anniversary of the tragic Haiti earthquake and it's time to reflect on the work being done and the work left to do. Here one of our volunteers from the US, Debi Lammert, an Advanced Practice Nurse from Tulsa, Oklahoma, writes from our community clinic in Haiti.  

It was a Thursday—a supposed-to-be “light day” at the clinic where I expected the patient number to be closer to 140 than the usual totals of 180-220 per day.

The morning started routinely. It was hot and humid as usual, and by mid-morning we were in our accustomed state of sweating and dampness, snatching drinks to prevent our own dehydration and eagerly awaiting the upcoming lunch break. 

Irritable children cried in the triage area and patients drooped against the cement walls and benches waiting for their turns to be seen. Occasionally an argument broke out about who was next in line, and I popped in and out of the pharmacy room to check on which medications we currently had available to prescribe.

Forcing a smile and a “bonjour” for each patient, I functioned as the third provider, seeing mostly children and their mothers with the usual diagnoses of pneumonia, bronchitis, fever, upper respiratory infections, rashes, diarrhea, and vomiting.

At noon, when we stopped for lunch and re-assessed the patient volume, the clinic administrator Jasmine and I agreed that we had seen about three-quarters of the patients and that we would likely end the day early. Everyone seemed happy at the prospect of being able to spend some time completing a staff education class that we had started the day before.

We went back after lunch, but a strange thing happened. Every time I went out to the waiting area to do a mini-triage and evaluate the waiting patients, there were more of them!

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside in the waiting area. Four friends and family members carried in a young pregnant woman who had just attempted suicide by swallowing a cup of bleach. She was barely alert and gagging. Most of the staff stopped to concentrate on this emergency situation. Doctors clustered around her and consulted about treatment and gave orders while the staff started IV fluids, nurses checked vital signs, and the clinic chaplain came in to pray for her. We joined them in prayer. 

In the midst of this crisis, a volunteer nurse entered the room cradling an extremely dehydrated, malnourished young infant with a high fever and severe respiratory infection. Her situation was also life threatening, so a few of us broke off to tend to this baby. 

By God’s grace, we were able to get an IV into the infant’s scalp quickly. Jasmine held a headlight to provide enough light and a translator helped to hold and secure the child. The nurse stayed with her, monitoring and praying for her as we attempted to locate a hospital that would accept these two patients for further care. 

To complicate the situation, this critically ill 3-month-old had been brought in by a neighbor who saw that she was dying. The mother could not be located, and the father reportedly did not want her and would not care for her.

Many of the hospitals in the area refused the patients since they said they were either too full, closed, or on strike since workers had not been paid. Finally, after much begging, we found hospitals and packed the patients and their families into the local transport vehicles, known as “tap taps”, for the short rides. 

The infant was accepted at a nearby hospital, but the staff relented at our repeated requests, stating that “since she was so small, she could share a bed with another child on the pediatric ward.” We prayed for her and for the kind neighbor who accompanied her, that her life would be spared and she would be loved, nourished, and nurtured.

We returned to work at the clinic as a team and saw several more very ill patients who had joined the group in the outside waiting area. Abscesses to drain, elevated blood pressures to treat, and high fevers filled the remaining minutes as we closed out the unexpected busy afternoon. The completion of the class would have to be rescheduled for another day.

We realised as we reflected in the van on the way back to the base that we had been a part of God’s larger plan in the lives of these needy patients. Despite our own plans, each individual had a role in providing tender, compassionate physical, emotional, and spiritual care to the Haitians who had come to us for help. 

God had orchestrated the perfect team in an imperfect setting with imperfect people who were willing to be used by Him

With 500,000 people still displaced there will be many challenges in Haiti's future. Please keep the country in your thoughts and prayers.