A WEEK AT THE HOSPITAL
On Sunday, church started early; I may have woke up before the animals, which seems impossible. We headed to Saintard to church, L’ Egliz Reformee, which is right down the road from the hospital. When Mark and Kathy walked in you could immediately see they were known and loved by many. It was obvious that this community has adopted them as their own. After church, the Community Health Initiative (CHI) team came to the hospital. They began the process of meeting with patients, figuring out their needs, and preparing for their surgeries that week. Unfortunately, the amount of people needing these specialty surgeries were more than the week allowed and some had to be turned away, but after several hours, their week was planned and they had a full schedule of patients.
Monday was an especially exciting day. It was the first day of the hospital’s new 24/7 schedule with the ER accepting patients. I was able to see the hospital in action and meet even more staff. It was the first day for CHI to start surgeries. The CHI construction team started their list of projects and the CHI tech team started work that was way too complicated for me to understand. AND we picked up Jared and Stephanie! Jared works for Christians Broadcasting Hope (CBH) and agreed to help us create a video for Mission Haiti Medical. Stephanie, Jared’s sister, is a pharmacist, and she took on the huge task of organizing medicines that were needing a home. It was very time consuming and monotonous work, but it was much needed and appreciated! We all slept well that night.
Tuesday-Friday were also busy, busy, busy. I was meeting new staff everyday, hearing more and more about the hospital and all it’s offerings. Jared and I worked to get footage for the video, and filled in the gaps where we were needed most. The CBH Studio recorded sermons to broadcast, the construction team made shelves, bed frames, walls and doors, the tech team did a lot of amazing computer stuff that was beneficial for Kathy and the hospital staff, the surgery team completed 56 specialty surgeries, AND the hospital was fully functioning each day with patients all around! It was incredible to watch.
It was a great week to be at the hospital and to see all that was accomplished. I want to give a shoutout to Mark and Kathy for being amazing hosts to everyone visiting from the states that week. Coordinating 4 different project groups totaling around 25 people can get complicated, but everything ran smoothly.
Want to hear more about my trip? Stay tuned for my next blog post-Reflections.
