Doing Healthcare in Haiti

This week, I returned from another trip to Haiti – and this time, I was privileged to be part of a medical team going out to (mostly) rural areas to treat people who rarely see a doctor.

My role was to help with pharmacy, provide muscle, and work on logistics. And take a lot of pictures, of course. Once again, it was quite a learning experience.

Some things are better seen than told, so here is a (captioned) photo set on Flickr of the trip, including a few brief video snippets. Enjoy!

From someone immersed in the pharma/healthcare world, here a few brief observations:

1. The people – especially nurses and doctors – who provide care for all of us, and especially those in very needy lands, deserve our highest respect. I was in awe watching my team members in action.
2. Azithromycin and Erythromycin are not the same. I got a taste of the care needed to prevent prescription errors. In a fast-moving situation with language translation also involved, this was challenging at times.
3. Rural, developing-world medicine faces different issues than we normally think about. Worms. Scabies. Infections. Lack of history and/or context. Bad water. Basic hygiene.
4. The need in Haiti is vaster than can be described. In my two trips there, I’ve only seen a sliver of the island. You can’t feel useless there.
5. Cultural differences can be complex. But smiles and love are universally understood.

Will I go back? Most likely. It’s a rare privilege to be able to do this – your support of my work here at Impactiviti actually provides me with the freedom to do outreach in Haiti, and to bring back awareness of the needs of our neighbors in the Caribbean. Thanks for all of your encouragement during these endeavors!

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