Day 7: Port-au-Prince, Haiti

This afternoon, I got to go to the J/P HRO field hospital to ascertain whether or not to pinpoint the mechanical failures of the X-ray as we were told that they have a similar system to ours.  This new problem has been especially frustrating since today is my last full day here in Haiti.  Although the X-ray machine is certainly in much better shape that it was before I came, I would like to see it functioning more reliably before I depart.  Sure, we can take as many exposures as cassettes we have, but only being able to successfully load one exposure every hour is ridiculous.  If I am able to isolate the fault to the cassette, we may even actually be able to borrow one of theirs in good-will camaraderie!  

Two doctors accompanied my engineering counterpart and me.  They were transporting two patients with possible spinal, head, and chest fractures.  After about forty or so minutes, we arrived at Sean Penn's J/P HRO field hospital, which was being built brick-by-brick over a former golf course.  It's actually a tent hospital on a plateau overlooking a magnificent landscape of the grand mountains of Haiti and of the shimmering Caribbean Sea.  Downhill from the hospital is a massive tent city of approximately 35,000 displaced Haitians.  Security for the hospital was being handled by UN soldiers from Portugal and Brazil.  

View toward the Caribbean from J/P HRO -
The tent city is beneath and around the trees

Upon arriving, we explained our problem and proceeded to the X-ray machine.  To our dismay, we discovered that they were using an incompatible system.  In fact, X-ray exposures are taken in one tent while the sole cassette they have is walked over across the compound to process the image.  My mood sank as I knew that solving the mechanical problem would take much more time than I had left in Haiti.

I needed to take a walk.  I ventured to the barbed wire fence separating J/P HRO from the tent city.  Walking along the fence's path eerily reminded me of walking along the Mexico-US border.  It was with a deep longing, however, that I wish I could have walked among the Haitians, but even if that were possible, crossing the more transcendent barriers would prove more challenging.  Spending one week here in the capacity of my vocational desires has no doubt given me some perspectives, but there is still so much to learn and so much to do in accompanying Haiti toward true sustainability.  

Such thoughts weighed heavily on my mind during the return ride to Medishare four hours later.  Then I considered that given how long X-ray processing takes at J/P HRO, it may have just been better to take the exposures at Medishare and gruel out the equally long process of loading up the phosphor screens.  We may have even been able to complete all the scans we needed in less time!




My wife and me with some of
our Haitian friends at Medishare

As I wrap up my last night-shift at Medishare, I am poignantly aware of the wonderful community I am about to leave behind.  Walking through Peds, I see the patient monitor I restored for a premature baby, who is conspicuously missing.  The nurse then tells me that he passed this morning.  Again,  as how it has been here since I arrived, my heart becomes heavy.  I remind myself that at any hospital, life is restored, but life's duality dictates some are fated to death.  This humbling reality has too helped to put my frustrations of not being to repair even more medical devices in perspective.  I try my best to thank God for affording me the perseverance and insight to repair an X-ray machine, a patient monitor, and an ultrasound unit.  Though the X-ray is not functioning at 100%, it can still be used to help diagnose patients.  Nothing will change the fact too that I put 100% into it with the time I had. 



Signing off, I am indeed grateful to have been blessed with this amazing opportunity to make what little difference I could. To paraphrase Mother Teresa, "We cannot hope to do great things.  Only small things with great love."

See Luke 24:13-33, our wedding mass gospel reading -
"Were not our hearts burning?"

Haiti, je dois partir malheureusement maintenant, mais sache ce que je me laisse derrière, c'est pas possible d'expliquer en mots.  Donc, sache une pièce de mon coeur reste ici.  À la prochaine quand je peux encore faire mon coeur en entier, je t'embrasse très fort!"  (Haiti, I must unfortunately leave you now, but know what I leave behind cannot be explained in words.  Know then a piece of my heart remains here.  Until I can again make my heart whole, I embrace you strongly!")