She walked into the busy clinic, a thin, quiet teenage girl who seemed frightened and reserved. Her name was Jennie and she had been brought to the clinic by her adoptive mother who heard that a Hands Up for Haiti team would be visiting the small clinic known as Shaddai in the area of […]

Almost every Hands Up for Haiti volunteer who has traveled to northern Haiti has been welcomed at Open Door in Bois de Lance. In fact, this clinic was the site of the very first medical mission in 2010 when the founding team went to Haiti after the devastating earthquake. They were welcomed at that time […]

By Dr. Jill Ratner It was our last day of clinic at Open Door in Bois de Lance, a rural farming community where Hands up for Haiti has supported a medical clinic for the past three years. I was called into the examining room where one of our pediatric nurse practioners, Lauren Blum, was seeing […]

By Dr. Jill Ratner Four months after Dr. Michael Shaw returned from his first trip to Haiti and his first experience delivering health care in a resource limited country, we sat down to talk. Even though Dr. Shaw is a seasoned Obstetrician/Gynecologist and has done extensive volunteer work with Planned Parenthood, he admitted that nothing […]

By Erica Bromberg I recently returned from my third trip to Haiti. This time, I went on a pediatric mission. There were 14 people on the trip and the group consisted of students, pediatricians, nurse practitioners, nurses, nutritionists, social workers, and a professional photographer. As with my previous two trips, this mission was nothing short […]

By Jill Ratner Every team that has gone to Haiti has witnessed that so much of the disease that we treat would be prevented by basic services that are so available in the developed world that we take them for granted.  Availability of clean water is just something that people in Haiti, like most of […]

By Mary Ann LoFrumento MD We all wish for happy endings in our stories and in our lives. But life in a slum like Shada is as far from a fairy tale as possible. Returning to our clinic in the midst of Cap Haitien’s worst slum, I found myself feeling cautiously optimistic. I was immediately […]

By Mary Ann LoFrumento This was not my first time in Shada. For the past three years, I visited every six months. This trip, we came to hold classes on breastfeeding, childbirth and nutrition. We hadn’t planned to see patients until the next day. The Clinic de Communitaire de Shada, supported by donations from Hands Up […]

By Katie Lynn RN. With contributions by Barbara Rome RN, Andrea Feddes, RN, and Kristen Ward RN, editorial assistance by Mary Ann LoFrumento MD. My name is Katie Lynn and I’m an ICU nurse in Mount Kisco, NY. Working in a resource limited country was something I had wanted to do from the time I […]

I have just returned from my 7th trip to Northern Haiti in the last 3 ½ years and it was, once again, an amazing experience. My name is Judy McAvoy and I am a registered nurse and certified lactation consultant and childbirth educator.  I am also one of the original members of Hands Up For […]