Day 3: Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Part of what Medishare hopes to accomplish here in Haiti is to enhance the education of the existing Haitian staff.  The goal of this teaching hospital is for the Haitians to eventually take competent ownership and to in turn educate the public on health issues.  Nevertheless, how can such a reality truly manifest if people obdurately cling to crippling superstitions?  Today, a nurse came into the pharmacy picking up meds for a child burn victim.  The child had gone into a seizure, which some Haitians take to mean Satanic possession.  Unfortunately, the father of the child was one of those who believed in this myth, where the prescribed "remedy" was to throw those with the devil into the fire.

As horrifying as we may find such an act, the father was most likely acting in what he thought to be in his child's best interest .  He wished nothing more than to return the devil to the fire and to thus release his child from evil.  When love is so great yet you know nothing but the actions dictated by fear, you are falsely empowered by illusion.  I think it is not only the physical rubble above which that Haiti must climb.  Should they not also overcome that pervasive internal prison holding them back in the past?  What a glorious sight it would be to behold a truly liberated Haiti, which does mean "Land of High Mountains".  Let's pray that the Haiti truly lives up to her name and rise even above the clouds. 

With respect to engineering matters today, we weren't able to get a hold of that X-ray technician in Miami.  I did however do quite a bit of documentation of all my observations and test results to date so that future engineering efforts on the machine would not have to start at square 1.  I also forwarded my work and inquiries to the tech.  Hopefully, he'll have some time to contact me before I depart.  

Radiology -
where 3 out of 3 machines are broken and where I'm working most of this week

I wanted to then start working on the ECG, but the ER had to open up Radiology late last night for a critical case. I attempted to shift gears by looking at the two broken ultrasound units, but these devices were quite outdated.  Fortunately, my experience with ultrasound technology at work has helped me become familiar with their general operation.  Still, without manuals and schematics, I'm struggling to understand these machines from a different era. 

Although I do feel like I'm making a difference here, it has been overwhelming.  There's so many broken instruments, yet there is only one of me here for just one week.  I had a conversation with logistics about officially adding an engineer to the roster for each weekly recruitment or at the very least for one week every month.  They told me that they had looked into that option, but due to frustrations with management from Miami, they abandoned the idea.  In effect, they're shooting themselves in the foot, for equipment continually breaking down just equates to higher operational costs.  I'm hoping to continue my dialogue with logistics even after I leave Haiti to help them push for a regular engineering role.  Perhaps, we could even work to have two engineers visit at the same time.  On peut rêver, n'est-ce pas?  (One can dream, right?)