Hello,
We are so happy you have volunteered to work at our Global Therapy Group clinic at the Haitian Community Hospital! Below is information we hope you will find useful. Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions. All the PTs and OTs who have traveled before you have told us their time in Haiti was life changing for them. Haiti and its people have an energy that draws you in and touches your soul. We hope your experience is wonderful.
Thanks!
Donna Hutchinson, PT
Global Therapy Group
Before you travel:
1. Suggested immunization are Hep A and B, typhoid, an up-to-date tetanus, and malaria pills. (Our teams have found Chloroquinine is tolerated best.)
2. After purchasing your airline ticket, you will want to register your trip with the Department of State. https://travelregistration.state.gov/ibrs/ui
3. Click on “create an account” and follow the steps.
4. When you register you will need an address where you will be staying in Haiti.
If staying at the $75 a day guest house with Dr. Jacob Bernard, choose HOME as the option on the left. His address is Thomassin 28 Impasse Décidé #2. Use the two address lines to get it all in. The city is Port au Prince and there is no zip code or other info needed. Just leave the other boxes blank. His cell phone in Haiti is 011-509-3457-7989.
If staying at the $40 a day guest house with Caroline Hudicourt, choose HOME also. Her address is 2 Rue, Delmas 105. Use the two address lines to get it all in. The city is
Petion-ville and there is no zip code or other info needed. Just leave the other boxes blank
Her phone in Haiti is 011-(509) 3498-0863
3. One of our PTs found this resource at Kansas University. It is a "Haitian-English Medical Phraseology " textbook in PDF and an audio download you can burn to a CD.
http://www2.ku.edu/~haitiancreole/
This link has basic Creole words/phrases.
http://www.answeredprayers2.org/Creole.html
***We have found that the Haitian people respond to use very well if we attempt to speak even a few words of Creole. (French is spoken by the elite class in Haiti and will make them feel more distant and intimidated.) Many people understand some English and our translators will be a big help. I find a simple “Bonjou” (hello) elicits a big smile. I then usually begin with “Mwen Rele Donna” (My name is Donna) then “Ki gen ou rele?” (what is your name.) After just that small exchange, you will have a new friend and the translators can take over.
4. What to pack:
Open toe shoes. Adidas or Speedo thong type with good arch support are great. Crocs or sneakers are too hot.
Scrubs/capris pants and scrub top. No shorts. Neither men nor women in Haiti wear shorts in public.
Deet (just in case to spray window screens or patio).
Water bottles
Plastic hangers to hang change of clothes to dry.
Snacks
Hospital Information:
1. Our clinic is adjacent to the Haitian Community Hospital (HCH.) http://haitihosp.org/
It was started by Dr. Edith Hardicourt and her husband in 1984 and is one of the few non-profit community hospitals in the Port au Prince area. She is 84, still very vibrant and works a few days a week in the hospital lab (she is a pathologist.) Her daughter is Josiane Hudicourt Barnes and she is the main hospital administrator since the earthquake. She was educated at Harvard and lived in the Boston area while raising her family for the past 30 years. She has now moved to Haiti and will be running the hospital. If you have a situation or patient you are not sure what to do with, just find her and ask. She is very approachable, helpful,l and thinks like an American. You will understand once you are there how much easier that makes explaining things. The previous team should introduce you to her.
There are two main ortho MDs at HCH. Dr. Bernard and Dr. Viale. Dr. Bernard has an office off the main lobby with the heading “orthopaedic” over the door. Feel free to knock and walk right in if you need to consult about a patient or have a patient with a serious problem appear at the clinic. Dr. Viale works part-time. There is also a new Dr. Beauvoir (sp?) They refer many patients to us now and are very happy we are there. Dr. Woolley is the main internal medicine MD and can be found in the room with “Dispense” over the door off the main lobby.
2. Our translators are Guibson, Alex and Emmanuel. Their phone numbers are below.
Guibson: 3708-6225
Alex: 3631-4621
Emmanuel: 3670-7330
(All Haitian phone numbers start with a 3. The area code is 509 and if using a US phone, dial 011 first.)
3. The clinic is open from abut 8:30 about 4:00 M-Sat. Time is rather fluid in Haiti as traffic is bad and life sometimes gets in the way. The patients will not have any problem waiting for you if you are late one day, and feel free to leave early if it is a slow afternoon.
The translators will usually get there before you in the morning and will sweep the evening rain off the concrete and set up the clinic for the day. The hospital provides a fee lunch of rice, beans, and a usually a black bean or tomato based sauce. It is really very good and is safe to eat.
4. Global Therapy Group is part of the Haitian Government's Injury and Rehab Disability Group. They meet every Wednesday. Josiane attends the meetings and takes one of our therapy volunteers with her. If one of you could go with her that would be great. You just need to sign in and list that you are with "Global Therapy Group". We get the minutes from the meeting sent to us, so don't worry about taking notes. We just want to keep a presence there.
5. We are working with Healing Hands for Haiti for prosthetic referrals. Just e-mail me the name, basic info and phone number of any patients who need to be referred
6. We have been informed of some transportation and assistance available for pts meeting certain criteria. It is provided by International Office of Migration w/ funding various sources. They have 6 mini buses + drivers.
Criteria: Patients injured in the quake with priority of ortho and amputees requiring follow up rehab; geriatric pts; pts under 5 years of age w/ family member; women who are heads of families; pts who are tb+ or hiv+; women who are victims of sexual violence.
The team need to email or call with the following information:
Dr. contact info for follow up
pts DX
pts Name, Sex, Age
date of hosp admission if applicable
email: imohaitipa@imo.int
phone: 3654-7650 (english/french/creole) M-F between 9am and 4pm
Guest House:
- Please pay at the guest house by check upon arrival. Checks take a long time to clear in Haiti.
- Electricity is the same as in the US.
- There is safe drinking water available and you will be able to fill water bottles there to have for the day at the hospital.
- You will find a laptop useful as there is internet access at the guest house and on the second floor of the hospital by the administrative offices. (There is a desk by that office at the hospital and you should feel free to pull up a chair nearby and hang out at lunch or when you have some downtime. You can ask anyone in the administration office to leave your laptop there for safe keeping during the day.) Please e-mail me with any questions or concerns while you are there and I will problem solve for you from here.
***We have found that our blog and the pictures taken by our volunteer therapists are our best marketing tool in recruiting more PTs and OTs and for fundraising. We would love to have you write for our blog and send photos. Just e-mail both to me and I will post. We have several donors who live for the blogs, so the more the better!
4.You may want to bring some personal snacks for evenings or power bars if you want an option other than the rice and beans provided by the hospital at lunch. Several empty water bottles will be needed to fill and keep yourself hydrated through the day. There will be safe drinking water provided at the guest house. We are working on a drinking water option soon at the hospital.
Airport:
***Be sure to arrive at the airport at least 2 to 2.5 hours prior to your flight to PAP. Check-in and security have taken a long time for each of us. If flying out of Florida, you will need to do an overnight in an airport hotel. Be sure to reserve your spot on the hotel’s airport shuttle the night before.
When you arrive in Port au Prince:
Exit the plane and follow everyone into the building. You will wait in a line to go through customs. They will collect the cards you completed on the plane. You will be handed back a portion of the green card. Place this in your passport as you will need it when you return.
On the right will be carts if you need one to carry luggage. Just go to the person standing at the podium and pay $2 US cash and you will be given a pink ticket. Give that to the person standing by the carts and he will give you one. When you are done with the cart, just leave it outside. Many assertive porters will want to assist you, but a firm "non meci" will back them off. If you do need help, you can allow them and plan to pay $2 US for each bag they assist with. They will try and get you to pay more, but you must be firm. They are not thieves. just guys trying to make money to feed their family. We just handled the cart and bags ourselves. It makes things much simpler. If someone tries to hold your bags or push the cart just say a firm “Non!” and gently push their hand away. There is no danger, they are just assertive but back off easily. It helps to wear scrubs on the plane as the Haitians respect the medical personnel who come to help. Then you will also be dressed to work at the hospital when you get here. Bring a folding umbrella if you need to stand a few minutes to wait for your ride. There is no shade at the airport. You will exit through a set of red gates onto the street. This is the only difficult part of the whole trip for everyone. The area is crowded, it’s hot, the traffic is close, loud and the diesel fumes are bad, and everyone will be asking if they can help you. It feels a bit chaotic and overwhelming right at first. Just take a breath, tell everyone asking to help politely “non” and look for the guest house sign directly across the street from you. Dr. Bernard will have a driver waiting at the airport for you. We made a large hot pink sign that says Bethel Guest House for him so it will be easy to spot. When you exit the airport you will walk through a set of red iron gates. Once on the street the driver should be on the sidewalk directly across the street from you holding up the sign. If you do not see it, put up your umbrella and wait a few minutes. Traffic is bad at times and can occasionally hold up the drivers. Just in case something goes awry and after 20 minutes no one has shown up, please call. If you ask anyone offering to help (and there will be many!) they will let you make a call on their cell phone for $1 US.
**AT&T phones work in Haiti, but not Verizon or T-mobile.
Dr. Bernard if at his guest house: 3457-7989
Caroline if at her guest house: 3498-0863
Global Therapy Group Team phone at 3756-8577
(In a pinch you could also call one of the translators and they can tell the team.)
*** I do not anticipate problems as things generally go smoothly. It is just such a chaotic scene at the airport some days that I don’t ever want anyone to feel stranded with no options.
FYI July Teams:
Global Therapy Group collected an entire semi truck of equipment to outfit the clinic (parallel bars, Pilates table, stationary bikes, weight sets, balance boards, US machine etc) as well as w/c's, walkers, boxes of compresso-grip and prosthetic socks, and medical supplies. It is all sailing via a container ship with Buckner Humanitarian Aid Group. They have the hospital/clinic address and team cell phone number and will call to arrange delivery one day in late June or early July. I just did not want you to be surprised if it arrives when you are there. If it comes, find Josiane the administrator and she will locate some men to help you unload and unpack. The medical supplies and therapy equipment can go in the storeroom, some things like the parallel bars can have a permanent home outdoors at the clinic, and other items will need to be taken indoors each evening. I will leave it up to your judgment. Josiane can recommend other places at the hospital to store larger items like w/c's and bikes. There will also be tents included that were sent for a local pastor. Talk with Josiane about where to store them until he contacts us. I have
e-mailed her this information as well
The Lost Boys:
There are several boys who have taken to hanging around the clinic we have dubbed the “Lost Boys” as they reminded us of the movie about the Lost Boys of the Sudan.
They are ages about 6-12. We have made it a rule that no children (or extra adults for that matter) may be in the clinic during the working part of the day. They all respect the rule, but try to "push the envelope" at times. We simply have one of the translators kindly ask them to leave while we are seeing patients.
It is hard in that they are so sweet, often hungry and always in need, but we have found a workable system for assisting them. If you have extra food from your lunch, or something you want to share with them, ask the translators to take it to them away from the clinic. We have found it best not to have them associate receiving things with the clinic. You can also give them things yourself away from the clinic on your last day. The hospital is now feeding them the extra food after lunch so that has helped greatly. We generally share our extra water with them at the end of the day but that problem may soon be solved if the hospital gets their water filtration system up and running.
One of the prior teams began giving the boys $1 bills and it resulted in their "begging" for money each day. I explained to the translators and the boys when I was last there why begging is demeaning to them and often uncomfortable and off-putting to Americans. The boys make bracelets and toys and had also begun to give you one and then say "Give me a dollar." We taught them it is more polite to give the bracelet as a "gift" and ask if the person will accept it. If they do, then the person may give you a gift in return. We found it best to not have the gift always be the next day, but maybe a day later. The boys have responded well to this concept of friendly gift giving and it has made for less hassle and annoyance during the working part of the day. The boys learned they are welcome to visit with us when the clinic is done seeing patients for the day and they love to teach you the Creole words for all the body parts or discuss American music or movies. None of them speak English, but somehow movies and music translate just fine. In terms of giving them gifts, we find candies and toys are great. They love soccer balls and other items, but we think they end of selling them as we rarely see things return. It is best not to give any item too extravagant or costly. We have asked all the volunteers to try and see your therapy skills as your best gift to the Haitian people. Giving too many "things" has just created problems in the past. We hope you understand.
Rainmaker Fundraising:
The Rainmaker Fundraising construction group will have teams working at the hospital throughout the summer. They have committed to expanding and modernizing the hospital over the next 2 years and will build us an 11,000 sq foot therapy clinic as part of that! We spent our first week in Haiti together and became partners in this adventure. They have created the
“Haiti Hilton” on the roof of the hospital and their teams camp out up there. Most of them are
ex-military guys who now own some type of business in construction. They are a great group and I know you will enjoy getting to know them. Just look for them on the 2nd floor of the hospital and go introduce yourself. Their website is www.rainmakerfundraising.org.
