When a cough is more than a cough...

Another day, another patient who touches your heart…one reason I love my job so very much.  Today, not once but twice I felt like everything I have sacrificed and all the support from my family and friends really went directly towards saving a life.

My first patient was a 2 month old baby with a cough accompanied by grandma and mom. As I began to inquire more about the health of the baby and the symptoms of the cough I learned that breastfeeding was an issue as mom had some of her own health concerns and that the baby was being fed teas and flour with sugar mixed in as it was all the family could afford. As I proceeded to check the baby it was clear that this child was severely malnourished and was hungry beyond belief. We mixed a bottle of formula immediately and began to feed her. She weighed in at less than 6lbs. She is lucky to have a family who cared enough to bring her to see a doctor even if it was for a different concern. Although too weak to breast feed she is quite the fighter with a solid cry and no other signs of impairment.

 She will survive.

For each one of these success stories there are plenty of unsuccessful outcomes and patients who never even make it to our clinic in the first place. There is an immense lack of education surrounding newborn care and childhood nutrition as well as limited access to care. More than ever we need to reach out to these communities and help them to be able to stand of their own feet and regain their health. I am hopeful that when the students come and we are able to open the clinic up every day we will get the word out to more and more people in the community. The more people that know about us the more we decrease the incidence of untreated illness and even death as we are at least a free, available option for people to utilize. Even if we can’t treat them, we can refer them out.

What Haiti needs more of are available options that lead to sustainable health. They need educational materials and classes and they need appropriate affordable health care. On top of all of this they need people who are willing to do all of these things without any ulterior motives; providing care because it is the right thing to do.

I love my job and I love Haiti, I am honored to be here helping these fantastic people. I hope to be teaching them at least as much as they are teaching me along the way. Every day I grow stronger in my ability to diagnose and treat disease as well as in my ability to take in what I am seeing and use it constructively. I could spend every night crying about the horrible situations I have seen or I can find a way to make the situation a little better. I guess you could say I am a fixer…and I am ok with that.