Here is an update from Peter Kelley, MD, the president of the Crudem Foundation www.crudem.org, which supports Hopital Sacre Coeur in Milot, Haiti. According to Dr.Kelley, there was much excitement at the hospital and in the town with the arrival of Cardinal O'Malley, the first cardinal ever to visit the area.
Dr. Kelley sent the following report
ONE THOUSAND VOLUNTEERS
I just returned from Haiti and again was amazed at the many
changes since my last visit one month ago. We were blessed to have
over 70 volunteers on site which made me check to see our total number
since the earthquake. I was surprised to see that as of yesterday we
have had 955 volunteers since the earthquake. By the end of April it
will be well over 1000! What a great testimony to the Christian spirit
that is alive and well in the US.
We now have 162 patients from the earthquake and 81 patients
from our area in northern Haiti. There are 40 patients that are
anxiously awaiting discharge this week which will leave us with a total
of 203 inpatients. When patients are ready for discharge we give them
the option of settling in our area or returning to Port au Prince. The
majority choose to return to Port au Prince where their families are
located. We give them food, money and a tent when we discharge them and
provide transportation by bus to Port au Prince.
As we discharge patients we are using the tents for different
purposes. The first tent has now become the outpatient clinic with 8
exam rooms and a triage area. A canopy was built between the wall and
the tent to create a waiting area for the 200+ outpatients that are
seen every day. The second tent is used for post op patients which has
allowed us to clear the hallways of the hospital of patients and
increase the space for our inpatient medical and maternity patients.
Our hospital has returned to a unified staff of Haitians and volunteers
working side by side.
During my stay we were blessed to welcome Cardinal O'Malley to
Crudem/Hopital Sacre Coeur. He arrived by helicopter from Port au
Prince with the Papal Nuncio and Jim O'Connor KMKob and Roger Jean
Charles MDKM. There was a great celebration since it was the first time
a Cardinal had ever come to the area. He visited with the patients and
volunteers and was visibly moved by the spirit of the children with
amputations. He said Mass in front of the tents so all the patients
could participate. There are some great pictures and a video of the
visit on the Cardinal's blog:
www.cardinalseansblog.org .
As we move forward the number of our volunteers will decrease to
30 to 40 a week over the next 2 weeks and we have need for primary care
physicians for late May and through the summer. Our specialty surgical
teams have returned because the ORs are no longer needed on a regular
basis for orthopedic surgery. The first team to return was the Urology
team led by Dale Peterson. They saw over 120 patients in their clinic
the first day and have 2 weeks full of surgery scheduled. In early May
we will have a general surgery and ENT team arrive. I return the end of
May with an Ophthalmology team and a plastic surgery team arrives in
June.
We are proceeding with our renovation and expansion plans. Tim
Traynor has returned and is guiding the many projects. The prosthetic
lab outfitted with a donation from the American Association of Malta
and Malteser will arrive next week and the donated new 6000 ft storage
building called a sprung building will arrive in May. When the storage
building is assembled we will move all of our supplies to that building
and will institute a bar code system so we can track our supplies and
our needs thanks to a donation from the Federal Association of the
Order of Malta.
I have received inquires about the financial status of our
hospital since an article appeared on MSNBC and the Miami Herald
describing the closing of a hospital in Port au Prince called Hopital
Sacre Coeur/CDTI. This hospital was owned by a Haitian radiologist who
tried to expand with the help of a NGO to help the earthquake victims.
Apparently the NGO was unable to continue it's financial support and
the hospital was forced to close.
We are blessed with support from the 3 US associations of the
Order of Malta and their many individual knights and dames as well as
many other individual donors. In fact over 95% of our financial support
comes from individual donors. We have been in existence for 24 years
thanks to this support and plan to continue providing care for at
least another 24 years. We are proud that we are probably the only non
government hospital in Haiti that is run by an all Haitian
administration and staff. We feel that Hopital Sacre Coeur is the
perfect prototype for how medical care can be delivered in Haiti
and are hopeful that it will be used as an example in the rebuilding
effort. Thank you for making all of this possible and for your
continued support of Crudem/Hopital Sacre Coeur.
Peter Kelly MD
President, Crudem Foundation Inc.
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