A young woman lies on the examining table, anxious and unsure. She tested positive for pregnancy, but after being seen at a local clinic, she was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy, a potentially life-threatening situation when an embryo implants in the fallopian tubes rather than the uterus.

She sought help at Justinian University Hospital and arrived at the OB-GYN clinic where Dr. Nelly Osias, a dedicated obstetrician and gynecologist who heads HUFH’s cervical cancer program, and Dr. Cyril LeConte, the head of OB-GYN at Justinian, were training residents on the use of an ultrasound machine. They used the machine to examine the woman; as the images became clear they revealed something unexpected, with much better news for this young woman.

The ultrasound machine is an amazing tool used routinely in the US and other developed countries. It is a piece of equipment precious and rare in Haiti, and this particular one, a portable ultrasound able to be moved to the bedside of any patient, was donated through the efforts of HUFH. But like many things in Haiti that take time and effort before they produce good results, this machine took a journey of its own, a journey that took 18 months from the time it arrived in Haiti until it was in the hands of the doctors at Justinian, who in turn used it to help our young patient.

In November 2015, Dr. Judy Banks, an attending obstetrician/gynecologist at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey, generously donated this ultrasound machine for use in the early – and frequently life-saving – diagnosis of problems during pregnancy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Banks led a HUFH mission to Haiti to donate the machine to our partner hospital Justinien University Hospital, a government run teaching hospital, and to hold workshops on prenatal ultrasound techniques. The mission was a great success and more than 30 doctors took part in the workshop. The donated ultrasound machine was placed in the care of Dr. LeConte.

The team left Haiti believing that all was well and they had done a good thing. The ultrasound machine would immediately begin to help the doctors recognize breech pregnancies, or twin pregnancies, and also to help a mother know how long she had been pregnant and when the baby is expected.

But after a few uses, a computer software problem occurred, rendering the machine inoperable. Despite efforts in Haiti and in the US to correct the software problem, the machine needed to be returned to be re-programmed by the manufacturer. Our in country team went into action and when the next HUFH team arrived, they delivered the machine to Dr. Chris Raab, an attending at Nemours Children’s Hospital heading a HUFH pediatric global health team. He picked up the machine and brought it back to Delaware. Dr. Mary Ann LoFrumento, HUFH President, traveled from New Jersey to Delaware to retrieve it. Then Dr. Banks contacted the manufacturer and sent the machine to be repaired. The tech staff fixed the software and updated it just in time for Dr. LoFrumento to bring it back with another pediatric Global Health team in May 2016.

Nothing in Haiti is ever guaranteed to go smoothly. Dr. LeConte was thrilled to have the machine back and celebrated how well it was working with Dr. LoFrumento, but the machine could not be put to use: Justinien, like all public hospitals in Haiti, went on general strike while the ultrasound machine was being fixed in the US, as doctors fought for better wages and better conditions for their patients. Dr. LeConte said he would safeguard the machine in his office until the strike was over.

It was not until earlier this year that the strike ended with the government acknowledging the poor conditions at the public hospitals and vowing to help the situation. The strike had caused a great deal of hardship in the country but the doctors and nurses knew they had to fight for better conditions and better pay. Patient care resumed at Justinian and the ultrasound machine was finally where it was supposed to be: in the hands of the residents at Justinian under Dr. LeConte’s supervision, where it is already helping to save lives.

On this day, Dr. LeConte and Dr. Osias did not accept the previous clinic’s diagnosis. After viewing the ultrasound results, they decided it might not be an embryo in the fallopian tubes but rather a cyst in her uterus (a false pregnancy result because of the hormones produced). The patient was admitted and a procedure was done to remove the cyst. She left smiling and relieved of pain as well as anxiety.

Like many things in Haiti, the ultrasound took a long and arduous journey before it ended up in the right hands. But the volunteers and staff at HUFH do not give up! Sometimes it takes a while to achieve something . . . . but with persistence, dedication, creativity and a bit of heavy lifting, the whole village accomplishes the task.

Andrea Feddes is a registered nurse from Canada, a HUFH volunteer and medical mission leader, who just returned from 9 weeks on the ground in Haiti with HUFH. Among her projects: a sexual health class for young women.

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“What if we don’t learn about sexual health in school and our parents don’t teach us. How are we supposed to know how to protect ourselves against diseases if we don’t know about them?” One of my 14 year old students asked me this during our first class together.

Since my first trip to Haiti in 2012 I have wanted to help educate the youth of Haiti on sexual health. The fact is, in Haiti there is no curriculum on sexual health. Parents don’t teach it out of fear of their kids knowing too much or because of religious objections, and the schools don’t teach it either. The truth I’ve learned is there is no such thing as knowing too much: knowledge has such power around the world; knowledge confers power and the ability to take care of oneself.

Guided by this belief, and with enough time during my recent 9 weeks in Haiti, I planned and taught lessons in sexual health to Haitian girls aged 13-16. I held weekly lessons in two different communities – with a total of 20 girls in my program. I followed the program  “For My Daughters,”. The book, written specially for programs in developing countries and available in Kreyol, discussed general reproductive anatomy male and female, puberty, menstruation, infections, sex and forced sex.

I had all sorts of emotions on my way to the first lesson; I was really excited but also really nervous. I kept thinking “I hope they show up. I hope they are as excited about this education as I am. I hope they feel comfortable talking to me about these issues.” After about an hour and of waiting, 10 young girls showed up and we got started. These girls exceeded my expectations and the next class that week in a different community was just as amazing. I finished that week feeling so refreshed, on such a high from my experience. There is something about teaching and having your students so engaged, asking questions, and showing interest that is so fulfilling and exhilarating to me.

My lessons didn’t always go this smoothly or as I had planned. There was one week where we had to get out of the car and walk 15 minutes to our class because the community was holding a demonstration about their Presidential elections. Another time the road flooded after some heavy rains and most of northern Haiti was under water to some extent. With that being said, these were only hiccups in my experience and I learned valuable lessons from these hiccups.

I learned a lot from “my girls” as well. I learned about the power of education. I learned that when you’re teaching about STI’s, sex and rape in Haiti that likely one of the girls already knew about them because it’s happened to them before, even if they are only adolescents. I learned about the resilience that the people of this country go through each and every day. A lot of time “my girls” would show up late for class because it can take hours to get home from school, or they had to take care of younger siblings or neighbor kids, sometimes they had to cook meals for their family or go fetch water from the wells. No matter how late they were for class they always showed up. They showed up because they knew they had an opportunity to learn something different, an opportunity to in return help their families and friends to be educated. They showed up because they were interested, they had questions (really good ones) and they wanted to be there.

At end of the program we had a celebration. I bought the girls a cake and some candy, and I was able to give them a hygiene kit. These kits were made with help from a few special people back home. One of my favorite things in these kit was a handmade, washable sanitary pad or as they say in Haiti “Kotex”. Each kit had 5 or 6 Kotex inside that were fun colors and designs. Something so simple that we take for granted in North America had put huge smiles on their faces.

Sandra (my amazing friend and translator) had told me half way into our program that she was sitting on her porch one afternoon and she could hear one of the girls in our class talking to the neighbor kids about the program. She had her book out and was teaching them about puberty. Going into this project my hopes were that these girls will go out into their communities, their schools, their families and friends and share what they’ve learned. Knowing that one of them had already started doing this gave me such satisfaction and joy.

To “my girls” thank you for showing me the power of education, the power that us as girls can have in this world and thank you for coming week after week no matter the circumstance to class with the eagerness to learn. You are all beautiful, smart and amazing young woman who I have no doubt are going to do great things and have such impact on others in your life (just as you have had on mine during our time together.)

Heal – Teach – Support. These are the words that guide all that we do at Hands Up for Haiti. But how are we able to do what we do? Only with the generous support of our donors and volunteers. Your help truly makes a difference in the lives of the people that we help.  The health challenges are great in Haiti, but in 2016, with donor and volunteer help, HUFH was able to accomplish a great deal, highlighted below in this blog.

We are deeply grateful to all who donate time, money and energy to our efforts and we want to take this opportunity to say: “Mesi mesi anpil” – “thank you very, very much.”

HEAL – TEACH – SUPPORT 2016: Thanks to the Hard Work of our Haitian Staff and Generous Donor Support, HUFH Programs Reach More People Who Lack Access to Care

For HUFH, sustainable health care means supporting programs that are led by our Haitian medical staff who know the best ways to deliver care to their communities. It means that rain or shine, emergency or just another day, our clinics and our programs, including those addressing malnutrition and delivering prenatal care, are open and delivering care under the management of our in-country staff. Thank you to the donors whose generosity sustains these programs.

 

Our Emergency Appeal after Hurricane Matthew made it possible to help a sister organization directly affected by the destructive flooding in the south and also to make repairs in our own clinics when weeks of rains returned to the north. Thank you to all the donors who contributed to our special emergency appeal.

 

 

We are proud of our Haitian in-country team, currently numbering around 50 people, led by Dr. Manol Isac, in-country Executive Director. Thank you to the physicians, administrators, nurse practitioners, nurses, agent santes, lab technicians and lay staff who operate our clinics and programs and go out into the community to run our prenatal programs and identify malnourished children, all of whom as a team help us deliver quality care.

HEAL – TEACH – SUPPORT 2016: Thanks to Volunteer Efforts and Donor Support, HUFH Volunteers Support Established Programs and Deliver Direct Care

Thanks to their tireless energy and commitment to HUFH and the people of Haiti, HUFH volunteers donated countless hours of time working in Haiti and at home to help us achieve our mission. This year alone 15 teams with 126 volunteers traveled to Haiti with us. Working alongside their Haitian counterparts, doctors, nurses, dentists, dieticians, public health professionals and laymen ran outreach clinics, delivering care to people in remote communities who have little or no access to medical care, and provided support to our established clinics in Shada and at Haiti Village Health  in Bas Limbe and to our medical professionals on the ground. Each team generally sees more than 500 patients during a mission.

This year’s specialty teams included a dental team and a podiatry and wound care team. The eye team continues its annual trips, screening for vision problems and bringing to the north their ophthalmologic services and supplies, much of which is donated by Alcon through the team’s vigorous efforts. Six of our teams were part of our global health education program, inspiring and training young physicians and nurses in the important work of global health.

Access to clean water would address a large number of the health issues that our patients face. Vigorously working to raise funds for water wells, our water team built four new wells this year, with two more scheduled for January, providing access to clean water to nearly 30,000 people for 35 years. Educating and empowering the community are major components of what each HUFH team does and the water team teaches the entire community, from children to elders, the importance of clean water in preventing disease and saving lives as well as how to maintain the wells.

 In Haiti, one out of every 5 children under age 5 is considered malnourished. Our malnutrition program identifies and treats these children. Thanks to donor support and a generous grant from Meds and Food for Kids, we reached our goal of doubling the number of children we treat annually to almost 600 children this year. Unfortunately, outreach is identifying more and more malnourished children from remote communities that suffer from severe food shortages and we hope to expand the number of sites, the number of children we treat, and the number of families we educate about nutrition, early in 2017.

HEAL  2016: Thanks to Volunteer Efforts and Donor Support, HUFH Launched Two New Programs This Year

                                                                     Cervical Cancer See & Treat
Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women in Haiti with an estimated 1,500 preventable deaths each year, the highest reported incidence of cervical cancer of any country in the world, 50 times higher than the rate in the United States. With our new program, we expect to screen 3000 women this year and treat 300 before it is too late – preventing their premature and unnecessary deaths. Special thanks to the Morristown Chapter of the Links Inc. and the Physicians in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Morristown Medical Center, whose donation of funds and equipment provided the seed money for this program.

 

Hypertension Screen & Treat
Severe and unrecognized hypertension in Haiti contributes to high levels of stroke, heart failure and premature death. Through HUFH’s hypertension initiative, we are training local nurses and other health care providers with a simple, easy-to-follow protocol and providing a ready supply of prepackaged, safe and inexpensive medications. Our pilot program is being supervised by a Haitian nurse practitioner: heal – teach – support in action.

TEACH 2016: Thanks to Volunteer Efforts and Donor Support, HUFH Helps Save Babies with its Helping Babies Survive Curriculum and Our Volunteer Nurses Forge Partnerships with Nursing Colleges in Haiti

Our goal: Whenever possible, teaching is Haitian to Haitian – effective and empowering.

HUFH volunteers and our in-country staff continue to teach Helping Babies Breathe and Essential Newborn Care, two programs highly effective in saving babies’ lives in the “golden minute” after birth and in their first days when most infant deaths occur. These Haitian nurses and doctors in turn train other Haitian medical professionals as well as traditional birth attendants in HBB/HBS and we offer refresher courses to make sure skills stay sharp. All of our sites are now following Helping Babies Survive protocols.

Collaborating and sharing knowledge with nursing programs in and around Cap Haitian, volunteer nurses teach substantive courses including HBB and HBS, hold adolescent workshops on topics including puberty and sexual health, participate in medical outreach clinics, and engage Haitian women in topics such as cervical cancer, domestic violence and preventing illness. Upon graduation, the new Haitian nurses go out into their communities and share their knowledge.

SUPPORT 2016: Thanks to Volunteer Efforts and Donor Support, HUFH Provides Necessary Infrastructure, Equipment and Supplies

The support that we provide to our programs, to medical professionals on the ground and to our partner hospitals is dependent upon the support we receive from generous donors, grantors and corporate sponsors.

Thanks to a generous grant from our partner and supporter, Positive Legacy Foundation, we were able to work on three infrastructure projects this year:

– improve the electrical system at the Shada clinic and get a new and improved generator;

– refurbish our office depot so that it can also be used as a functional clinic; and

– repair the water wells at Haiti Village Health, providing clean water to both the clinic and the community, in turn helping to prevent the spread of disease, including cholera.

Thank you to the Henry Schein Cares Foundation who awarded us the Henry Schein Cares Medal for Excellence in Expanding Access to Medical Care. After the devastation caused by Hurricane Matthew and the heavy rainstorms that inundated the north, our clinics and partner hospitals were in great need of supplies. In addition to a financial award, the Foundation supplied us much needed gloves, isolation gowns, and other basics, which we in turn use in our programs and shared with our partner organizations.

 

Thank you to SECA USA, manufacturer of medical measuring systems and scales, for providing us with accurate, high-quality portable scales and stadiometers that enable us to have quality measurement tools to assure appropriate care in our clinics and especially in our malnutrition programs.

 

Thank you to HUFH volunteers who organized and ran a holiday sale under the stewardship of volunteers Lynn Perton and Celeste Merzon-Theis to benefit both HUFH and the Women of Milot, an entrepreneurial network that creates meaningful and well paying work for Haitian women through a line of beautifully handcrafted goods. Funds went directly to improving the lives of women, children, and families in northern Haiti.

 

Thank you to Seton Hall University for generously providing us with 12 laptop computers for use in Haiti, enabling our medical professionals on the ground to keep up-to-date and accessible records of our patients and our programs and collect and evaluate data, greatly enhancing the quality of care.

 

Thanks to the Support of our Board of Directors, Donor Funds Go Directly to Program Support

Thank you to our Board of Directors, whose members underwrite our administrative expenses. Because of their generosity, commitment and vision, Almost Every Cent of Every Dollar Donated Goes Directly to Helping Children, Mothers and Families through our medical programs.

“When you save the life of a woman in Haiti, you save her children, her family and her community.”
To help support our programs and professionals on the ground, DONATE HERE.

Women in Haiti are the backbone of the country, strong and resilient, but they face multiple health challenges and risks throughout their lives, especially in the child bearing years.  HUFH remains dedicated to the support of our programs that help to improve the health of women throughout their lives.  To celebrate International Women’s Day, a day of action with the theme “Be Bold for Change,” please consider active support of any of the following HUFH programs for women and help change their lives for the better.

“When you save the life of a woman in Haiti, you save her children, her family and her community.“

Dr. Mary Ann LoFrumento, President Hands Up for Haiti

SAFER BIRTHS – SAVING MOTHER AND BABY: More women and their babies die during childbirth in Haiti than in any other country in the Western Hemisphere. Our prenatal clinics and Helping Babies Survive programs ensure safe births for both mother and child. Please help.

FIGHTING MALNUTRITION – SAVING CHILDREN: No mother should watch her child suffer or die from hunger. Our Medika Mamba program treats 600 children each year who are severely malnourished as we reach out to more and  more children in remote communities. Please help.

CERVICAL CANCER SEE & TREAT – SAVING WOMEN: Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women in Haiti with an estimated 1500 preventable deaths each year. With our new program, we expect to screen 3000 women this year – and treat before it is too late. Please help.

HYPERTENSION SCREEN & TREAT –SAVING GRANDMOTHERS: Severe and unrecognized hypertension contributes to high levels of stroke, heart failure and premature death. Through HUFH’s hypertension initiative, we are training local health care providers in a simple, easy to follow protocol. Please help.

CLEAN WATER PROGRAM – SAVING COMMUNITIES: Our water safety program provides women with access to clean water for their families, helping to prevent disease and the spread of cholera. Please help.

VISION PROGRAM – SAVING VISION: Our Eye Program provides vision saving screening, treatment and surgery helping women to provide and care for their families. Please help.

TOGETHER WE CAN SAVE LIVES AND IMPROVE LIVES. PLEASE HELP.

Mesi anpil – Thank you very much for all of your support.

As volunteers with Hands Up for Haiti, Lynn Perton and I have made three trips to Haiti on pediatric missions. On each trip we visit the local tourist market in Cap Haitien, looking for things to buy to support the local economy. But beyond a few trinkets, we don’t usually find much.

Then in January 2016 we spotted some beautiful, colorful, handcrafted items at gift shops in Cap Haitien. Our HUFH team members bought up these lovely potholders, aprons, tote bags, and jewelry pouches. Each product had a tag indicating that it was made by the Women of Milot (WOM) Entrepreneurial Network and featured a photo and short bio of the Haitian woman who made the item. We were so excited. Not only could we buy some really nice gifts to take home, but we could also support this organization that was helping Haitian women achieve a livelihood and financial independence.

Once we got back to New York we googled WOM, and Lynn succeeded in contacting Deborah Couri, its founder and executive director. Lynn and I met with her in April to talk about her organization.

Women of Milot was started at about the same time as HUFH, shortly after the earthquake in 2010. Deborah went to Haiti to see how she could help. She ended up volunteering at Sacre Coeur Hospital in the village of Milot, where many people were being sent from Port Au Prince. The local women in Milot went out of their way to help those who had been displaced, injured, and hospitalized far from home. Knowing that these women needed a way to earn money to support their families, Deborah noticed that a number of these women had some sewing skills. She bought sewing machines, fabric, and other supplies and developed patterns to make a few simple projects: pot holders, oven mitts, aprons, etc. She continues to supply these women with the training and materials they need and pays them a fair wage when they return the finished products. A number of women have been very successful and have taken on apprentices. In this way, the organization has grown exponentially, with some women earning enough money to send their children to school and even buy a house.

Lynn and I were inspired by the WOM story. We decided to organize a holiday gift sale, featuring products made by WOM. The sale would benefit both HUFH and WOM by highlighting the work of both organizations and raising money for them. Sandra Rhodes even found a source to buy Haitian coffee and chocolate, which we also sold at the events.

Several of our fellow HUFH team members joined the effort, and in November and early December we had four separate sales at different venues and towns in Westchester County and upstate New York.  Lynn Perton and I at the Black Cow Coffee House in Croton on Hudson; Sandra Rhodes and Laura Shea at the Black Friday Fair Trade Market in Delmar;

Wendy Marx and Meg Sussman at the Saw Mill Club in Mt. Kisco;

Janet Krzemienski, Tracy Birkhahn, and Stephanie Korn at the PTSA Holiday Fair in Irvington.

We enlisted the help of friends and family who helped with sales, inventory, and accounting. Our good friend and fellow HUFH volunteer, Elise Lentz, organized a raffle for the Croton event with prizes that were generously donated by local artists and crafters. It was a terrific team effort.

The multiple fundraisers were very successful and raised money for both HUFH and the Women of Milot.

Will we make this an annual event? Stay tuned…

To bring this full circle: Deborah Couri informed us that some of the women in WOM are now making enough money to work their way out of poverty and to support themselves and their families. Our team, which includes many volunteers with expertise in nutrition, is returning to Haiti tomorrow and plans to meet many of the women and to hold an educational session for them and their children at the clinic and speak about the importance of good nutrition.

Water equals life. And clean water equals health. It’s a simple concept but it has powerful meaning. Waterborne bacteria cause infectious diarrhea and life threatening cholera and are a direct result of people forced to drink unclean water to survive. So much of the disease that we treat in Haiti would be prevented by the availability of clean water. Recognizing this need, Hands Up for Haiti has made clean water one of our priorities in the communities we serve. Building wells and making certain that the water wells we have built remain in good working condition is a priority and educating the community on cholera prevention and the importance of clean water for health is part of our mission.

As part of this mission, the HUFH “water team,” headed by Frantz Toussaint, our Haitian community liaison and translator, and US volunteers Patrick Schelle and Keanna Nelson, was on the ground shortly after Hurricane Matthew, working with community members on maintenance and repair issues, and providing water safety and cholera prevention education. While this team focused on areas to the east of Cap Haitian, clean water efforts have also been carried out in the west in our clinics in Bod me Limbe.

HUFH has an ongoing program to raise funds to build community wells throughout northern Haiti in villages identified by our partners in Haiti, Dr. Eugene Maklin and Dr. Ernest Jasmin, the Director of the Ministry of Health in the north. Each water well, which costs approximately $3500 to build and maintain and employs many Haitians in doing so, provides more than 4000 people with access to fresh, clean water for more than 35 years. This is a guarantee not just that lives are made easier and safer, but of healthier children and families.

To date, thanks to the generosity of our donors, we have built 6 wells in Haiti and two more are in process.

Before the water team arrived in Haiti, they communicated with Dr. Maklin about repair issues and with Frantz about the communities’ needs. Several needed repairs, in part because the community was unsure how to care for the wells.

 

Educating the community is a major component of what each HUFH team does. The need to teach about waterborne disease and water safety was made more urgent by the increased threat of cholera from Hurricane Matthew. Working with Frantz to determine the best way to approach the communities, the team arrived with visual learning materials including a video called ‘The Story of Cholera,” laminated cartoon-like images that displayed properly storing clean water, maintaining the environment in which the well is situated, when and how to wash hands, and how surface water trickles down through the soil to become clean naturally filtered ground water.

Keanna explained: “We believed if we give these communities all of the possible information they would need to take care of the well, and actually know how it functions, they would also get confidence and take ownership of maintaining the wells in good condition.” At the same time it was an opportunity to educate the community on the connection between clean water and good health.

One thing that sets Hands Up for Haiti apart from other organizations that install water wells is that we work together with communities right from the start, including choosing the sites for the wells. “We always try to give the community members the information they need to know, answering all questions, and most importantly establishing a line of communication between the community and HUFH”, said Patrick. Although these wells are built with donated funds as a gift to the communities they serve, they will only be a success if the community embraces that gift as their own and works together to take care of and cherish it.

The communities have taken that ownership: Heal – Teach – Support in action. Patrick, in discussing the work of the water well, shares: “One of the greatest moments of our trip was on the last day. As we ensured to get these wells repaired and running before we departed we discovered what impact we have already made in one week! The community informed us that they in fact were already saving money together to repair and extend the concrete platform of the well. This was it! They got it!! When I think about this it makes me want to cry tears of joy. This is empowering people.”

There are now six Hands up for Haiti wells throughout the rural communities outside of Cap Haitien, Haiti. Moving forward we plan to build more wells, with a goal of at least 10 wells running by summer of 2017, with Frantz together with community members ensuring that all of the wells are properly maintained.

Team member Dr. Marilyn asked after her first trip to Haiti in October 2014: “With this one week trip to Haiti, did we really make an impact or is it just a drop in the bucket?”

Patrick’s answer: “The answer Doc is both, YES to both!!! We make a huge impact every time we go and we make a drop in that bucket every time! The best we can do is keep on fillin’ up that bucket as long as we are physically and mentally able.”

To support Hands Up for Haiti’s water wells program and help us build more wells, please donate here.