Dispatches from Haiti

Dear Everyone,

For the past five years I have been posting from the Journal Star website
in a blog called Dispatches from Haiti. There are approximately 400 hundred posts.

I posted this yesterday.

Thanks for reading.

john

www.haitianhearts.org

Haiti's New General Hospital Still Not Built Five Years After Quake

John A Carroll shared a link.

51 mins · 

Haiti’s new $83 million General Hospital still not built

Five years after a 7.0 earthquake damaged or destroyed more than 50 hospitals and clinics in Haiti, the heart of the country’s public health system is still struggling to recover.

MIAMIHERALD.COM

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• Hedy Elliott likes this.
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  John A Carroll The photo above is the Pediatric Ward of the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince. This Pediatric Ward is inside a large tent that was constructed after the earthquake five years ago damaged the old Pediatric Ward that had been built in the 1930's. The General Hospital is the only public hospital serving 3 million people in Port-au-Prince. And if you saw this debacle in person, you may not recognize it as a "hospital". Haitians go there fully expecting to die.

  Just now · Edited · Like
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  John A Carroll Caterpillar tractors and bulldozers are currently knocking down old buildings at the General Hospital as dust, dirt, and debris fill the nostrils of patients and mothers as you see here. The mother's are the primary caregivers for their sick children.

  10 mins · Like
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  John A Carroll OSF-CHOI built a new Children's Hospital and Emergency Department for 250 million dollars while they banned Haitian Hearts patients from coming back to OSF-CHOI. This embargo by OSF has been in place now for 12 years. A number of our patients have come from the General Hospital Pediatric Ward in Port-au-Prince. See above. Does this seem like ethical Catholic health care to you?

  4 mins · Like
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Peoria's OSF-Children's Hospital of Illinois Heart Surgeons Leaving Town

Forum: A big loss for Peoria

Dr. Dale Geiss, cardiac surgeon, recently moved his practice from Peoria to the Quad Cities. Dr. Geiss began his practice of adult and pediatric

PJSTAR.COM

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  John A Carroll Dr. Dale Geiss established the surgical pediatric heart program at OSF-CHOI through incredible hard work, tenacity, and skill. It took him decades to do this. 
  
  Dr. Geiss operated Haitian Hearts patients and never sent me one bill. And neither did his perfusionist, operating team, or the myriad of pediatric speciality physicians taking care of the Haitian kids post-operatively. (Haitian Hearts did pay OSF-CHOI over 1.1 million dollars for use of their facility and excellent cardiovascular ICU staff and ancillary services.) 
  
  And don’t forget Dr. Geiss mentored a young pediatric heart surgeon, Dr. Randall Fortuna, for the last decade at CHOI. Unfortunately, Dr. Fortuna just left town too. 
  
  Pediatric heart surgeons of these doctors abilities are not found on every street corner. What a shame for central Illinois babies, children, and young adults. 
  
  Like most everything else in life, we don’t know what we have until it is gone.

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Haiti--2014

John A Carroll shared a link.

2 hrs · 

Haiti--2014

Father Andre is the soothing force in northern Haiti. His announcements after Mass are the social media equivalent of Twitter but are much more important. Haitian officials request tourists but for...

BLOGS.PJSTAR.COM

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Inertia

As Haiti election delays continue, Aristides remains focus - Haiti - MiamiHerald.com

Defying a judge’s order, opposition leaders in Haiti plan to visit former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was put under house arrest last week as part of an...

MIAMIHERALD.COM

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• Hedy Elliott, Jeri DuBois, Jennifer Reed and 2 others like this.
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  John A Carroll When a society does not have basic infrastructure (government, justice system, roads, electricity, water, food, education, medicine) the population cannot thrive. And when calamity hits (earthquakes or Ebola) there is no reserve to fight back.

  23 hrs · Edited · Like · 1
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  Micki Berthelot Morency The disappointment continues to mount in Haiti...Infrastructure in Haiti had been decimated for years by several causes, but the influx of "Aid" has crippled its people. They seem to no longer expect much if anything from its government, but live off handouts. Education, food, healthcare, agriculture, employment, roads...are provided/funded/subsidized by NGOs.

  22 hrs · Unlike · 2
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  John A Carroll Institutional inertia. And blank stares from organizations that were designed to serve. This happens not only in Port-au-Prince but in Peoria, Illinois. We are desensitized with our digital devices and have lost empathy. Our heads are truly in the sand.

  20 hrs · Edited · Like · 3
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