A Byte Out of Poverty

Peoria Journal Star
Tuesday, June 19, 2007

"Humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries, but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity, reducing inequity is the highest human achievement."

That's a pretty powerful quote. And this altruistic appeal originates not from a preacher or presidential candidate but from a software engineer named William Henry Gates III - better known as "Bill."

The Microsoft mogul recently addressed the graduating class of Harvard, the Ivy League school he famously quit to pursue his passion for computers. After accepting an honorary degree, Gates joked he was glad to finally get his diploma. But jokes aside, this commencement address transcended the usual fodder college grads hear. It was revelatory, honest, a humanitarian call to arms.

The 52-year-old Gates admitted he left campus in the mid-1970s "with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world - the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair." It took him "decades to find out" that others, especially in developing nations, were getting substandard schooling, enduring hunger or dying of treatable illnesses like malaria and measles - not of their own fault, but because both private and public sectors had failed them.

In revisiting his naivete, Gates urged not only graduates but also Harvard as an institution to "make market forces work better for the poor" and use "creative capitalism . . . so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living." In addition, citizens should "press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes."

Gates should know something about values. The man who tops Forbes' billionaires list has, along with wife Melinda, thrown himself into philanthropy. His foundation, with an endowment of $33 billion, has given millions in grants to fund the kind of "teach a man to fish" initiatives he referenced in his speech: college scholarships, public school curriculum support, access to vaccines and, of course, money to bridge the digital divide. Like Warren Buffett, another billionaire benefactor, Gates seems to have realized money is only as good as the man who makes it, and that wealth and position can motivate others - politicians, businesses, the media - to pay attention to those less fortunate.

In his late middle age, the world's richest man has dedicated his time to the world's poorest people. Ironic, yes, but nicely so. Would that those of us mere mortals with more modest means but equally generous spirit follow suit.



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My comment:

The PJS editorial states, “…Gates seems to have realized that money is only as good as the man who makes it, and that wealth and position can motivate others—politicians, businesses, the media—to pay attention to those less fortunate.”

Why isn’t the Journal Star “paying attention” to those less fortunate that have lived right here in Peoria? I wonder what the Journal Star thinks of OSF’s refusal to take care of Haitian Hearts patients that have been treated at OSF in the past and now need further heart surgery to stay alive.

Haitians kids are dying because of OSF’s refusal to care for their patients. Gates’ cry for reducing inequity as the “highest human achievement” generates no action in Peoria for Haitians, only written words.

The Cuban Experience

“It is increasingly rare for many of us to believe that people can be poor, but honest; poor, but deserving of respect. Poverty is no longer blamed on anyone but the poor themselves. Contempt for the poor has become virtue.”

John Cardinal O’Connor
Archbishop of New York

After working a fair number of years in Haiti, I think that Haiti’s medical problems are solvable. All problems in Haiti are solvable, but this post regards how adopting certain aspects of Cuba's health system could help Haiti and, quite possibly, improve the lives of certain poor populations in the United States.

The International Journal of Epidemiology published an article in August, 2006: “Health in Cuba”. It is written by Richard Cooper, Joan Kennelly, and Pedro Ordunez-Garcia.

The authors write that no matter what one believes about the politics of Cuba, there is a lesson to be learned regarding Cuba’s health care system. And with just a little water separating Cuba from Haiti, my very small mind asks, why can’t Haiti adopt some of Cuba’s life saving public health measures?

The article reports that the word needs to disseminate that Cuba has done something very worthwhile regarding health care.

The abstract of the paper states:

“The poorer countries of the world continue to struggle with an enormous health burden from diseases that we have long had the capacity to eliminate. Similarly, the health systems of some countries, rich and poor alike, are fragmented and inefficient, leaving many population groups underserved and often without health care access entirely.

"Cuba represents an important alternative example where modest infrastructure investments combined with a well developed public health strategy have generated health status measures comparable with those of industrialized countries. Areas of success include control of infectious diseases, reduction in infant mortality, establishment of a research and biotechnology industry, and progress in control of chronic diseases, among others.

"If the Cuban experience were generalized to other poor and middle income countries, human health would be transformed. Given current political alignments, however, the major public health advances in Cuba, and the underlying strategy that has guided its health gains, have been systematically ignored.”

The authors are saying that the biomedical literature in English has been almost entirely silent on the Cuban health experience and Cuban health revolution since 1959. They think that an open discussion should take place on the potential lessons to be learned from the Cuban medical experience because the “raison d’etre of the health sciences is the discovery of new knowledge and the use of that knowledge to improve health”.

In 1991 the Soviet Union withdrew economic support for Cuba. The authors refer to this as an “abrupt economic disruption”. However, they noted, “The impact on health indices was relatively modest and short-lived, however, further demonstrating that economic measures alone are poor predictors of physical well-being within a society. One potential explanation of this anomalous pattern may be the relative absence of extreme poverty, which is the most powerful economic correlate of ill health and can confound the effect of average Gross National Product (GNP). Cuba has a high degree of income equality and lacks the marginalized slum populations of most of Latin America, although the growing dependence of the tourist economy and, to a lesser extent, foreign remittances has widened the income distribution”.

Regarding the infant mortality rate, the article reports, “Since 2002 Cuba has had the second lowest infant mortality in the Americas, 20% below the US rate for all ethnic groups and just below the rate for US whites... Thirty-five per cent of the Cuban population is black or mulatto, yet the infant mortality rate are less than half of what is observed in the US black.”

“In terms of child survival, a ‘continuum of care’ that provides for the pre-conceptional health of women, prenatal care, skilled birth attendants, and a comprehensive well-baby program can quickly reduce infant mortality to levels approaching the biological minimum. Many observers will regard these propositions as reasonable, yet hopelessly too ambitious for the poorer nations of the world, It must be recognized, however, that these principles have been successfully implemented in Cuba at a cost well within the reach of most middle-income countries.”

I have had a number of young mothers in Haiti bring in their newborns that they delivered alone at home lying on their dirt floor. One mother told me that when her newborn cried immediately after delivery, the neighbor man next door heard the baby’s cry, and rushed over and cut the baby’s cord. This neighbor man could be considered a concerned person, but hardly a “skilled birth attendant”, which almost all Cuban mothers have during labor. This scenario in Haiti is absurd and wrong and could and should be fixed.

I think the real problem is fear. How much will the gran mange in Haiti have to give up for the vast poor underclass in Haiti can live like humans? How much will the well-to-do in the United States have to give up for our poor health care statistics to improve? Probably very little. And all social classes in Haiti and the United States would live stronger and more productive lives if the slightest amount of compassion, energy, and action were directed for the benefit of the poor.

The Cuban story regarding improving the health of its population needs to get out and be implemented in resource rich and resource poor countries whose people suffer from health care inequalities.

Luke--Part 2

Luke underwent his tests yesterday at OSF in Peoria.

The tests reveal that he has a large kidney stone in his right kidney that will need to be removed so that it does not obstruct and further injure his kidney.

The stone probably formed due his severe malnutrition several years ago in Haiti with infection possibly playing a role.

The medical care that he received yesterday from the nurses and physicians was excellent.

Luke spent approximately 30-40 minutes in the operating room where the procedure and xrays were obtained. No surgery was performed. He entered the operating room at about 9 AM and was discharged to home at 11:10 AM.

OSF's charges for the above are $9,500. The physicians charges are not included.

I asked OSF for an itemized bill so we can see how this breaks down. Will post the bill when I receive it.

Haitian has Heart Surgery at Provena St. Joseph

Marie Amazan, a 24 year old Haitian Hearts patient, received two new heart valves at Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Illinois. See Press Release. Provena St. Joseph provided their medical center pro bono as they did for four previous Haitian Hearts patients.

Dr. Bryan Foy performed the delicate heart surgery and Dr. Kinder placed a permanent pacemaker. All physicians involved in Marie's care provided their services at no charge.

Marie is from Carefour Feuilles in Port-au-Prince. She lives in a crowded two room house on the side of a steep hill. Many family members live with her. She has six older sisters and no brothers. Her father is dead.

Her family does not eat everyday due to the poverty of Haiti and her neighborhood can be dangerous with the gang and political violence that plagues much of Port-au-Prince.

Marie has been unable to do much for many years due to congestive heart failure. She could mop the floor and make her bed, but that was about it.

This week, Marie was discharged from the hospital and is improving everyday. A Cardiovascular Intensive Care nurse, Anita, has been supervising Marie's outpatient medical care and transportation since discharge from the hospital.

Marie was given a chance by Provena St. Joseph and its physicians and nursing staff. Haitian Hearts cannot thank all of you enough.
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See ABC News story.

See more about Marie's recovery as reported in Chicago at ABC News.

Haiti and Cuba--So Close, Yet So Far

Haiti and Cuba are separated by 90 miles of water. Their geographic proximity is close, but the health of their people could hardly be further apart.

Under President Aristide, Haiti and Cuba developed strong ties with considerable benefit for Haiti’s people who suffer from chronic substandard medical care. During the past decade Cuba sent over 500 members of a “medical brigade” bringing different levels of medical care to 75% of the Haitian population.

I have spoken to a number of Cuban physicians over the past 7 years. They work under austere conditions in rural Haiti and many work in urban hospitals in Haiti’s larger cities. The challenges are great, but the Cuban physicians seem to be quite flexible.

When I asked a female Cuban physician if she missed her family in Cuba she replied that the “Haitian people are my family”. I asked another excellent Cuban physician, if he enjoyed being in Haiti. He responded yes that he did and that he could "buy jeans on the street corner in Port-au-Prince". Haiti offers mixed blessings for all foreign physicians that work there.

It has been my experience that the Haitian people trust the Cuban medical professionals in their country. Many of my Haitian patients have been seen and examined by Cuban physicians. The Haitian people believe that the Cuban medical professionals are doing the very best they can for them.

I have seen statistics regarding the influence of Cuban physicians. I do not know where the statistics have originated or whether they are valid, but they are very optimistic.

One report from The Guardian, (March 17, 2004) states, “ In the areas (of Haiti) covered by Cuban doctors, the mortality rate for infants under 12 months dropped from 80 to 28 per 1000 live births, and that for children under five, from 159 to 39 per 1000 live births. The maternal mortality rate dropped from 523 to 259 deaths per 100,000 live births. More than 370,000 Haitians—80% of them children—have been vaccinated by the Cuban teams.”

The Guardian continued to report, “Cuba established a School of Medicine in Haiti, staffed by Cuban professors, to train Haitians to continue the work begun by the Cuban medical teams. At the time of the coup, 247 young Haitians were studying there. Another 372 are studying medicine as scholarship students in Cuba.”

Below are statistics comparing Haiti and Cuba:

1. Prevalence of Tuberculosis--
Cuba: 14/100,000
Haiti: 392/100,000 (Haiti ranks worse than Sudan, Pakistan, Mongolia, North Korea, Russia, and Romania.)

2. Infant Mortality Rate--
Cuba: 7/100,000
Haiti: 80/100,000

3. Access to Safe Water--
Cuba: 91% of population
Haiti: 58% of population

4. Maternal Mortality Rate--
Cuba: 33/100,000
Haiti: 523/100,000

5. Adult Illiteracy--
Cuba: 3% of population
Haiti: 47% of population

Luke

My wife and I adopted a Haitian boy last year. We named him Luke and we think he is about four years old. We brought him to the United States in February, 2007.

This post will be added to as the days and weeks roll by regarding Luke's medical saga at OSF in Peoria.

Several months ago Luke developed a medical problem. He has gross hematuria which means he is passing blood in his urine.

We did some blood tests at a local lab that is run by a lady named Joyce Harmon. After Joyce would take Luke's blood, she would kiss him, to help melt away his pain and trauma that he felt he did not deserve. Joyce charges very little for her blood tests and her lab is more a labor of love than a way for her to make any real money.

Other than the blood in his urine, Luke's blood tests were normal.

At that point, we decided to do a sonogram of Luke's kidneys. The sonogram was done at OSF in Peoria and OSF charged us $700.00 dollars for this test. The radiology group read his sono for no fee.

The sono revealed that Luke has kidney stones in his right kidney with an obstruction somewhere in his collecting system.

Several weeks later, Luke had his appointment with a pediatric urologist in Peoria who is very competent and we trust.

More tests were ordered.

On June 7, 2007 we received a letter from OSF-SFMC that stated, "As a service to you we have verified your insurance coverage; however, verification of benefits is not a guarantee of payment by your insurance company that all services rendered will be covered. Based upon this verification, your estimate/deposit for this visit will be $875.00 due upon registratiion. Your payment options are credit card, cash, or personal check."

What the above means, is that OSF-SFMC wants their money as soon as possible. The $875.00 is for a lasix radionuclide scan of Luke's kidney. Like the kidney sonography bill of $700.00, these bills are not covered by our insurance and do not come off our deductible.

So I spoke with the pediatric urology office and we cancelled the lasix radionuclide scan.

On Friday, June 15, Luke is scheduled to have a cystoscopy with retrograde pyelograms performed under a general anesthesia as an outpatient at OSF.

Patient Accounts at OSF called my wife today and stated that OSF charges for the cystoscopy will be $4,598.00 and the charges for the retrograde pyelogram (squirting some dye up the ureters during the cystoscopy), will be $4,903.00. These tests should take between 30-45 minutes in the operating room.

The pediatric urology fees and anesthesiology fees are unknown at this time.

After we meet our deductible of $2,500.00 and add $1,000.00 more, Blue Cross/Blue Shield will cover the rest...we think. OSF advised my wife today to bring $1,600.00 cash on Friday morning at 7 AM to get things started off on the right foot for OSF, the Catholic medical center with a "commitment to life".

OSF's Commitment to Life?

My wife was being cared for by an OSF health care provider last fall. E-mails between the OSF provider and my wife were blocked. They could not communicate with each other over medical issues while we were in Haiti.

The OSF provider was stunned to realize this especially when we did a “test run” to see if we received each other’s e-mails. No e-mails were received by either party when sent through the OSF account.

What can this OSF provider do? Nothing if this individual wants to keep her job.

It seems that both my wife’s account and my account to OSF and from OSF employees to us have been blocked by OSF. Dr. Gerry McShane indicated this as I posted in the past. Dr. McShane told me last spring that he was not receiving my e-mails.

I have sent e mails to OSF Corporate and to OSF's Administrative team and legal counsel pleading for the lives of Haitian Heart's children to allow them to return to OSF for further care.

I do not believe that Dr. McShane and others want other members of Corporate or any OSF employee seeing the content of my electronic communication.

Our four year old son will soon have surgery at OSF. Will the e-mails continue to be blocked by OSF regarding my son’s medical care too? The physician who will operate our son works out of OSF-Children’s Hospital of Illinois.

The Value Statements at OSF are being ignored. Statement number four, “Collaboration with each other, with physicians, and with other providers to deliver comprehensive, integrated and quality health care. Statement number seven, “Open and honest communication to foster trust relationships among ourselves and with those we serve.”

OSF’s hypocrisy regarding its Value Statements is not ethical and could indeed be dangerous.

Milestone for Generosity?

A Milestone for Generosity
Friday, June 8, 2007

OSF Saint Francis Medical Center's plan to improve care for its youngest patients seems to have touched the community. Donations are pouring in by the millions.

First came CEFCU, which in February pledged $1 million toward a new pediatric emergency department for the Children's Hospital of Illinois.

In April came $500,000 from Lynn and Susan McPheeters to help fund construction of the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit. Lynn McPheeters, whose daughters were born at St. Francis, is a former president of the hospital's foundation council.

Then RLI Corp. founder Jerry Stephens and his wife, Helen, donated $5 million for the neonatal ICU. Stephens told reporters he had long admired the standard of care at St. Francis. He also revealed that his only brother had died from spinal meningitis and he hoped to spare other families such grief.

All of this generosity is remarkable, especially since OSF isn't running a public campaign for its "Milestone Project" - a $234 million, eight-story building going up at its Downtown campus. In addition to the Children's Hospital, that building will have ground-floor space for Peoria's St. Jude cancer clinic affiliate, to be named after longtime St. Jude crusader and former Peoria Mayor Jim Maloof.

Perhaps local folks just have a soft spot for children, whom nobody wants to see suffer from treatable diseases.

Perhaps it's because Peorians feel that OSF's project, along with a $350 million makeover of Methodist Medical Center, will solidify the city's reputation as downstate's premier medical community. Or perhaps it's simply because people recognize that extraordinary beneficence has a way of paying its own, intangible rewards.



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There are 4 comments:

John A. Carroll, MD – Peoria, Illinois
June 09, 2007 - 22:49
Subject: Peoria's Medical Mafia

The Journal Star editorial reports the millions of dollars given to OSF from people in the area. Their generosity is inspiring.

However, will the funds be put to the best possible use by OSF? Will OSF Corporate and OSF-SFMC Administration follow the founding Sisters mission philosophy?

Probably not.

Haitian Hearts donated over 1.1 million dollars to Children’s Hospital of Illinois over the years for inpatient care for Haitian children. Our patients that were operated at OSF several years ago have been rejected at OSF for repeat heart surgery with full and partial charges offered for their care. Two have died. More will die soon unless OSF follows their mission statements.

There is significant fear in the Peoria community by individuals and institutions. To criticize OSF in a public forum with one’s name attached is not what people usually want to do. An individual contributor to OSF, one that OSF has privately courted for years, implied to me that she feared for her medical safety if she was publicly critical of OSF. (She has chronic medical problems.) This individual has strong reservations about OSF’s current leadership but is afraid to say so. Her fear really says something significant about OSF and would sadden the Sisters.

Also, the Journal Star and the Catholic Post have not reported OSF’s negligence of dying Haitian children and the obscene discrimination leveled against these children. The coverage of OSF’s 500 million dollar expansion and creation of jobs for the Peoria area has been more important to these two newspapers for reasons that are apparent to anyone who lives in central Illinois.

John A. Carroll, MD

Woodford Pundit
June 08, 2007 - 17:36
Subject: All right . . .
Now that we've vented our hatred . . .

Cudos to JMD
June 08, 2007 - 09:49
Subject:
The good sisters of the third order are the crookedest bunch of "well you know what" that ever predatated in the business world.

They do NO charity. They will demand others "share the wealth" as they refer to it. If you cannot tell I know what nuns are REALLY like.

jmd
June 08, 2007 - 08:42
Subject:
If they really cared about patient care - they would drop their vastly inflated pricing schedule.

What Will Become of Mauricio?

By Jennifer Carroll
Port-au-Prince, Haiti

When Mauricio’s parents brought him into the room, the first things I noticed were his big, brown eyes and his beautiful smile. Looking at this 6 month-old baby boy, you would never guess he has a heart problem. However, Mauricio has a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. If Mauricio had been born in the United States, his heart would have been repaired within a few weeks of his birth, allowing him to lead a healthy, normal life. However, Mauricio was not born in the United States. Mauricio was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Haiti lacks the technology and resources to fix Mauricio’s heart. Left untreated, this beautiful baby boy will probably not survive past his 20th birthday.

Haitian Hearts is looking for a hospital in the United States that is willing to save this baby’s life. Mauricio’s parents only want what is best for their sixth child, just as American parents want what is best for their own children. Looking into Mauricio’s eyes, I pray that a hospital will help him. Mauricio deserves a chance.

As she carried Mauricio out of the room, the last thing his mother asked was, “How long will my baby live without surgery?"

Mauricio

Dear Bishop Jenky and Sister Judith Ann,

Mauricio is a six month old Haitian baby with Tetrology of Fallot. I examined him two days ago in Port-au-Prince. He was born with four abnormalities of his heart which make it difficult for him to pump blood to his lungs. Most children in the developing world do not reach age 20 years with this congenital problem.

Please contact as many medical centers that you can to help save his life. He needs surgery which can be done at a good pediatric children's hospital that performs cardiac surgery.

Haitian Hearts will bring him to the United States and back to Haiti when his recovery is complete. His Haitian parents will be very grateful.

Sincerely,

John

Women with AIDS in Cite Soleil

Cite Soleil's Mural

There is a mural painted on a wall as you turn right off of Route National 1 into Cite Soleil. It is a picture of a Haitian woman with a tear running down her cheek as she holds a baby that is melded on the side of her sad face. The baby is looking the opposite direction and has an emaciated look. Both faces are incorporated into a white bird and the flag of Haiti is on the mother's scarf.

On the left side of the picture is the ever present picture of a gun with a red line through it.

The mural says so much and is so true. Mothers and babies of Soleil are beat up with violence and injustice. Their suffering is still unbearable. And most of the world doesn't know.

During the last three months there has been much news out of Soleil. MINUSTAH brags to the world that they have flushed out gang leaders and arrested hundreds of gang soldiers. Soleil’s situation must be better if you believe what you read.

Even though tanks still cruise Soleil's narrow streets, the UN soldiers are on foot patrolling Soleil. Several months ago they wouldn’t descend from their tanks and now I see soldiers back in the corridors of the slum. So things must be better...

Also, MINUSTAH does not seem to be firing on innocent groups of people from their tanks or helicopters and filling Soleil’s one pathetic hospital, Saint Catherine, with complex gunshot victims.

Will this absurd violence start again? No one knows.

A resident of Soleil told me today that “things are delicate” but there has been some decrease in the stress and violence on the streets, even though her home was robbed last week. Another person told me that younger ambitious gang members will take over and “thievery is on the rise”.

However, it is hard for me to see how wonderful things are in Soleil.

The clinic I work in the back part of Soleil is filled with sick, moribund, and dying babies. Two Haitian doctors and I do what we can, but when a baby starts to swirl the drain from sepsis, dehydration, or starvation, there is no place to triage the baby for real quality care. Saint Catherine’s is full, understaffed, filthy, and horrible. However, I have to admit that I would send my sick patients there if I could.

Soleil’s people deserve so much more.

I think that not all is black and white in Soleil. The ground is always shifting. The ultra rights fight the ultra lefts about what should be done.

The chimere are horrible. MINUSTAH is horrible. The gran mange are horrible. The poor people in Soleil are horrible.

The verbal and written attacks by different folks are malicious and seem counterproductive.

What is malicious is poverty.

It seems that no one compromises as the Haitian women sit on wooden planks and wait for ten hours with their sick kids and then receive very suboptimal medical care from me in the stench of Soleil.

My stomach churns with anger against everybody. No one is here. But everyone seems to have the answer for Soleil.

I don’t think the poor in Soleil ask for much. They would like what you have: jobs, education, food, water, basic medical care, security, and justice. They really don’t ask for much during the course of the day. And that even makes me feel worse…

The last baby I saw today was severely dehydrated, not crying, and very sick. I told the mother he was “grave” and referred the baby to a pediatric hospital on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. I don’t think she will make it there with him.

As she pondered her one option, tears came down her face, like the lady on the mural.

Haitians Allegedly Attacked at Sea

Haitian survivors say they were left for dead
BY STEVENSON JACOBS

Survivors of a capsizing that killed at least 61 Haitian migrants said Thursday that crewmen aboard a Turks and Caicos patrol boat rammed them, towed them into deeper water and abandoned them after their vessel overturned.

''They just left us out there,'' said Dona Daniel, 23, one of a half-dozen survivors who were interviewed by The Associated Press immediately after being repatriated to Haiti from the nearby British territory. The other Haitians corroborated Daniel's account of the tragedy in the pre-dawn hours of last Friday.

They said their sailboat, loaded with an estimated 160 people, was minutes away from the shore of Providenciales, one of the Turks and Caicos Islands, when the patrol boat rammed them.

''When they hit us the first time, water rushed into the boat and everybody screamed,'' Daniel said, adding that the patrol boat crew ordered the migrants to lower their sails, threw them a line and began towing them into deeper water. The boat then capsized.

Lovderson Nacon, 19, said many of the migrants didn't know how to swim and were screaming ''God help me!'' in the darkness.

Migrants interviewed by AP said people who desperately tried to pull themselves aboard the Turks and Caicos patrol boat were beaten back with wooden batons.
Nacon said some migrants were run over by the patrol boat after they were flung into the shark-infested waters as their boat capsized.

He said he was in the water for more than 15 minutes before a smaller Turks and Caicos patrol boat came out to pull survivors from the water. Other migrants said they were in the water for more than 40 minutes as they waited for the rescue boat to make a return trip.

''They heard us screaming so much, they finally came and helped us,'' Nacon said. ``The people who knew how to swim lived. The people who didn't drowned.''

The Turks and Caicos government has said it will not comment on the capsizing until two investigations are completed. Britain's Foreign Office also declined to comment pending the investigations. One probe is being conducted by the local government, and three government experts from Britain are carrying out an independent investigation.

After being flown back to Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city, the migrants, wearing maroon T-shirts and athletic pants, were driven on a school bus to a gymnasium where about 100 relatives, many weeping, greeted them.

The relatives called out their loved ones' names, not sure if they had survived the worst disaster to hit Haitian migrants in years.

At United Nations headquarters in New York, spokeswoman Michele Montas earlier Thursday described the capsizing as ''a tragedy'' and said ''it could have been avoided.'' However Montas, a Haitian, said the U.N. had no further comment and that the issue was between the Turks and Caicos Islands and Haiti.

Jeanne Bernard Pierre, director-general of Haiti's National Migration Office, said Tuesday that the Haitian government would consider the ramming of a migrant boat to be a ''criminal'' act.


________________________________________
© 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

Haitians Don't Throw Fastballs

Since the beginning of this year, hundreds of Haitians have left Haiti in rickety boats. No one knows how many have drowned or have been eaten by sharks.

In April, 704 Haitian migrants were stopped by the Coast Guard and hundreds have been returned to Port-au-Prince.

Unlike their Cuban neighbors, Haitians don't usually vote Republican and Haitian fastballs are not near as accurate as Cuban baseball players throw.

The U.S. does not want Haitians here.

Addressing 1,200 mourners in an emotional and politically charged service in south Florida, the Rev. Reginald Jean-Mary eulogized Lifaite Lully, 24, who drowned trying to reach the U.S. in a boat carrying 102 Haitian refugees:

"We have come to mourn the death of hope. This young man was....in search of security and freedom and meaning in his life."

Bishop Jenky's Five Years

The Peoria Journal Star recently published an article on Bishop Daniel Jenky’s first five years as Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria. Bishop Jenky declined to be interviewed for the article and would not allow other Diocesan officials to be interviewed. Fr. Mike Bliss, OSF chaplain, was picked by the Diocese to be quoted regarding the Bishop’s first five years.

Bishop Jenky is spiritual head of almost 200,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Peoria.

In his first five years the Journal listed Bishop Jenky's number one accomplishment was leading a successful capital campaign. 37 million dollars was raised by the Diocese. The majority of these funds are going to Catholic school scholarships and other educational efforts.

The Journal also stated that he has spearheaded plans for a new diocesan center near downtown Peoria. Bishop Jenky also refurbished the Cathedral and a photo shows the Bishop in the Chancery showing "Victorian steps, curving French Renaissance stairways and historic pieces".

Unfortunately, in 2003, Bishop Jenky gave into OSF, as OSF withdrew all support for Haitian children dying of heart disease. Haitian Hearts patients, that were treated at OSF in the past, have not been able to return to OSF, and some have died. Bishop Jenky could have helped find other medical centers to care for sick Haitian kids, but he did not. Based on my conversation with him, I think he is afraid of the power and wealth at OSF. It would be interesting to know how much OSF contributed to the Diocesan capital campaign.

I am sure Bishop Jenky has accomplished good things in his first five years in Peoria. However, advocating and supporting Haitian kids dying of heart disease is not one of them.

OSF's Charity Assistance Did Not Include Jean-Baptiste

The following is from the Children's Hospital of Illinois website. Jackson Jean- Baptiste was denied care at Children's Hospital.

Jackson is buried in Goodfield, Illinois.


Charity Assistance
(309) 686-6700
(800) 421-5700

Dear Patient:

The philosophy of OSF HealthCare is that all people have a right to receive needed health care. Our doors are open to persons of every faith and ethnic background regardless of their ability to pay.

We provide help to patients in obtaining payment from third parties such as Medicaid and Medicare. If you are eligible for Medicaid, and you are not currently signed up, we can help you apply.

We also offer charity assistance for medically necessary healthcare services to persons who meet our financial terms provided they submit the needed documents. OSF Charity Assistance may be applied for when there is a balance still due on an account after we have received payment from third party payers (like Medicaid, Medicare or an insurance company) and you feel you cannot pay the full balance.

The PDF form available through the link below must be completed and signed by you. We use income guidelines established by the U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Services to determine if you are eligible for charity care. We do verify assets regarding your eligibility. So, please provide all the information promptly so we may try to help you as quickly as possible.

For more information, please call your patient accounts representative between the hours of 8am and 4:30pm Monday through Friday at 309-686-6700 or 800-421-5700.

OSF HealthCare offers high quality healthcare and we were pleased to provide that to your family. We look forward to working with you further to make sure the financial aspects of your care are handled in the same high quality way.

Sincerely,
The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis

Click below to download or print the OSF Charity Assistance PDF form.

English Version
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Madame Therese

The lady in the photo holding the baby is Madame Therese. She remembers growing up in the Les Cayes area in southern Haiti. Her life was good.

Her family had a garden and they had enough to eat. They were happy. A bag of cement was not near as expensive as it is today.

She lives in Port-au-Prince now. She is afraid now. She was never afraid while she was growing up.

Notice her eyes are glistening. Madame Therese prays five times per day for her family and for Haiti. She still has hope for Haiti.

I believe the Madame Therese's of the world keep the world afloat. She is filled with faith. It is not the politicians or monsignors that are keeping Haiti from sinking into the ocean; it is Madame Therese.


"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

"Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other poeple won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

"It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we uncounsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson

Vicarious Grief

"According to Chochinov, there are a couple of catches to vicarious grief. The less the victims resemble us, the less grief we feel. And we don't seem to feel this grief as acutely for those who suffer from chronic problems, which often have their common denominator in poverty."

Maria King Carroll

Gorillas Receive Better Care than Haitians

Gorillas in Brookfield Zoo near Chicago receive much better care than most Haitians in Haiti.

First of all, the gorillas are fed every day. And they drink clean water. Gorillas don’t worry about when their next meal will be. On the contrary, the majority of Haitians are obsessed every day obtaining any food or clean water for their families.

Gorillas are moved between zoos in the United States for breeding purposes. We want to protect the future of their species. When Haitians flee the poverty in Haiti in pathetic boats and wash up on our shore, we return them to their island of misery. We don’t seem as concerned about their future.

When gorillas become ill, they receive much better medical care than the Haitians trapped in the slum or living in Haiti’s vast barren mountain ranges.

A gorilla named Chicory at the Brookfield Zoo displayed neurologic signs. An MRI was promptly done which revealed a large brain tumor on the right side. The brain tumor was removed and Chicory made a complete recovery.

When a poor Haitian gets a brain tumor, he doesn't get an MRI or surgery. He dies.

Heart disease affects many gorillas. The picture shows a gorilla's echocardiogram. Obtaining an echocardiogram and surgery for Haitian children dying of congential heart disease is much more difficult than it would be for a gorilla living near Chicago.

Maxime, Jackson, and Peoria's Makeover

Maxime, in front of the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, December, 2006.

Haitian kids like Maxime and Jackson continue to die while Peoria will spend an estimated $850 million during the next 10 years to "makeover" their two main medical center campuses. The medical centers are located one block from each other.

See editoral in the Peoria Journal Star regarding this expansion. Also, note that no mention is made of Maxime or Jackson.

Haiti, MINUSTAH, and Latin America: Solidaridad?

Please go to IRC Americas Program to see a recent article by Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon, Jr.

Justice and Injustice

Liberation theologists theory of justice begins from the experience of injustice. It is rooted in reflection on the dismal poverty that submerges the majority of Latin Americans in conditions of inhuman wretchedness.

“Justice, says Sobrino, takes seriously the primordial fact of the created world in its given form; that is to say, it takes seriously the existence of the oppressed majorities. The existence of these majorities is not a fact that can be lightly passed over in speaking of the essence of the Christian message.”

Likewise, Segundo Galilea asserts that the starting point of liberation theology’s reflection is the present situation, in which “the vast majority of Latin Americans live in a state of underdevelopment and unjust dependence.”

Justice, the liberationists insist, demands that conflict be brought into the open and faced, not subsumed or denied.

Justice demands that one enter the fray, that one enter into conflict and choose sides for some and against others. As Gutierrez observes, those who seek justice cannot avoid conflict because in a society scarred by injustice and the exploitation of one social class by another, the proclamation of justice will transform history into something challenging and conflictual.

Social conflict is a reality that the liberationists, as long as they do not avert their eyes from the misery and squalor that surrounds them, cannot escape.

However, when liberationists highlight the connection between the struggle for justice and social conflict, they are not blessing conflict. They do not believe that justice can come only at the point of a sword or through the barrel of a gun. On the contrary social conflict is ultimately the product of sin; it is the historical consequence of collective sin.

Humanity need not live in conflict; persons do not need to oppress their sisters and brothers. Conflict need not be sublimated or denied; it can be resolved. The resolution of social conflict, in fact, is precisely why the liberationists give conflict such a prominent position in their work. They seek to resolve it by uncovering and then eliminating the cause for the conflict, namely injustice.

From “Liberation Theology After the End of History—The Refusal to Cease Suffering” by Daniel M. Bell, Jr.

Haiti's Plague is Poverty

The Haitian baby to the right presented with seizures, fever, bulging tense fontanelle, primitive neurologic reflex at his right hand, and eye deviation to the right. He quickly became mottled and more lethargic. He was treated quickly with IM ceftriaxone and steroids. He was comatose for several days, but woke up and began interacting and eating. Most Haitian babies don't do this well with bacterial meningitis.

WHO estimates that about 1.6 million people, including up to 1 million children under 5 years old, die every year of pneumococcal pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis. In populations with high child-mortality rates like Haiti, pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of mortality and accounts for about 20-25% of all child deaths. In these populations, Streptococcus pneumoniae is identified consistently as the leeading cause of bacterial pneumonia, and pneumoccal bacteremia is an important cause of child mortality. HIV infection increases risk for pneumococcal disease 20-40 fold, and antibiotic resistance makes threatment difficult and expensive. Thus pneumococcal idsease is a major global-health issue.

Haitian poor children are only given the standard vaccines. They do not get pneumococcal vaccines. If any group of children need the pneumoccal vaccines it is the Haitian children.

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines can prevent most serious pneumoccal disease. The seven to 13 serotypes included in conjugate pneumoccal vaccines are expected to prevent 50-80% of all pediatric pneumococcal disease worldwide.

Also, the decline in disease in unvaccinated people is accounted for by the reduction in colonisation in vaccinated children and thus decreased transmission to unvaccinated contacts. In the USA, this herd immunity effect prevents twice as many cases as the direct effects of vaccination alone.

Based on studies done in Africa, there is a compelling case for giving pneumoccal vaccination in Haiti. Pneumococcal invasive disease, pneumonia, and meningitis, and a decrease in all cause mortality has been documented.

What are we waiting for?


"Many fledging moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming that there was nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable. And Tarrou, Rieux, and their friends might give one answer or another, but its consclusion was always the same, their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and there must be no bowing down. The essential thing was to save the greatest possible number of persons from dying and being doomed to unendng separation. And to do this there was only one resource: to fight the plague. There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical."

---From The Plague, by Albert Camus

Tuberculosis

Consider these facts regarding tuberculosis:

1. Tuberculosis kills 2,000,000 people each year around the world. Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death from a curable infectious disease.

2. The incidence rate is highest among young men.

3. The incidence of tuberculosis in the United States was 4.6/100,000 people in 2006.

4. The incidence of tuberculosis in Haiti was 306/100,000 people. 6,000 Haitians die from tuberculosis each year. Haiti's incidence of tuberculosis rivals Africa, which has the highest incidence in the world.

5. Haiti is 90 minutes (by air) from the richest and most powerful nation in the history of man.


"The history of tuberculosis is one of scientific, medical, and political failure. Although modern short-course treatment for tuberculosis is among the most effective and inexpensive of treatments for life threatening diseases, tuberculosis remains one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide."

"Turning the Tide Against Tuberculosis"--Lancet 2006; 367:877-878

Peoria's Headlines

During the last several days, the headlines of several articles in the Peoria Journal Star have been about Peoria's medical center's expansions.

"Saint Francis Vision Goes Sky High"(March 31, 2007) is an article about OSF's Life Flight air transport using its new 4.3 million dollar helipad for patient transfers to St. Francis. OSF is planning on spending about $500 million dollars on building projects over the next several years.)

Another article the same day was headlined,"Methodist Unveils Vision for $350 Million Renovation". Methodist Medical Center is one block down the street from OSF. "You can't provide 21st century health care in early 20th century buildings," CEO Michael Bryant told the Downtown Rotary Club.

Today (April 3, 2007) a small article was titled, "101 Haitians Who Landed in Florida Likely to be Deported". The article reported," The United States will probably deport most if not all of the 101 Haitian migrants who landed off a South florida beach last week, a U.S. legislator said Monday, warning other not to risk the dangerous voyage.

"The 101 Haitians, many looking gaunt and exhausted, came ashore Wednesday north of Miami after spending at least three weeks at sea in a dilapidated sailboat. One man died in the crossing and three were taken to the hospital in critical condition."

The articles in the Peoria paper describe the incredible wealth in our world and the incredible hopelessness in the other world.

I have stood on the beaches along the western and southern shores of Haiti and have shuddered at the thought of getting in a "dilapidated sailboat" and leaving. The waters crash into the shore and seem to say, "Don't even think about leaving here." But many courageous Haitians do. They think they have no choice.

We hear of the boat people that make it to our shores, but never hear of the ones that the ocean swallows and delivers them from their misery in Haiti.

Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord make me
an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred,
Let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, Joy.
O divine Master grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled
As to console;
To be understood,
As to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
And it is in dying that we are
Born to eternal life.
Amen.

Just think if everyone who had any interaction with the Haitian people said this prayer each morning. It would render so much good will and positive actions. There would be so little time wasted with nonsense that keeps the people poor and voiceless. Haitian people would be educated, paid well, and could drink clean water. None of the gran mange anywhere in the world would suffer---they would benefit. The slums could be torn down and Haiti's "boat people" wouldn't want to leave the Pearl of the Antilles. Who would want to?

MINUSTAH could go home and the Diaspora could come back. And the streets of Port-au-Prince could be safely walked in at night.

Why is this so difficult?

A Deafening Cry

(Father Gerry Jean-Juste with parishoner at St. Clare's Church, Port-au-Prince, 2005.)

Perhaps the single most significant event to give impetus to the rise of liberation theology was the Second General conference of Latin American Bishops that met in August of 1968 in Medellin, Colombia. This meeting has been called the “Magna Carta” of liberation theology.

One of the documents on poverty from this conference, written by the bishops, stated the following:

“The Latin American bishops cannot remain indifferent in the face of the tremendous social injustices existent in Latin America, which keep the majority of our peoples in dismal poverty, which in many cases becomes inhuman wretchedness. A deafening cry pours from the throats of millions of men, asking their pastors for a liberation that reaches them from nowhere else.”

According to the documents from Medellin, the situation in Latin America was characterized by “institutionalized violence,” “unjust structures,” “internal colonialism,” and “external neocolonialism.” Together these amount to a “sinful situation” that leaves the Latin American countries dependent on the economic centers of power. In light of this situation, the bishops called for “ an all embracing, courageous, urgent, and profoundly renovating transformation.” The Church was called to “create an eminently Christian task.” The bishops commit the Church to a program of a “new society” in which the human person is “an agent of his own history.” The Church was encouraged to carry Christ’s message of liberation to the poor by becoming a poor Church, by being in solidatrity with the poor and giving “preference to the poorest and most needy sectors.”

In 1971 Gustaveo Gutierrez’s book was written. “A Theology of Liberation” remains the classic statement of the ecclesiological issues at stake in the rise of liberation theology. Critics charged that liberationists were guilty of reducing Christianity to a political ideology—in effect attending to this world while ignoring more “spiritual” concerns proper to the world to come.

Gutierrez wrote in an essay after publication of his book the following:

“One of the oldest themes in the theology of liberation is the totality and complexity of the liberation process. This theology conceives total liberation as a single process, within which it is necessary to distinguish different dimensions or levels: economic liberation, social liberation, political liberation, liberation of the human being from all manner of servitude, liberation from sin, communion with God as the ultimate basis of a human community of brothers and sisters.”

Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit priest in El Salvador, was recently criticized (2007) by the Vatican. Fr. Sobrino is a Spanish born priest and a well known proponent of liberation theology. The Vatican explained, “Father Sobrino manifests a preoccupation for the poor and the oppressed, particularly in Latin America. This preoccupation certainly is shared by the whole church.” The Vatican stated that the church cannot express its preferential option for the poor through “reductive sociological and ideological categories.”

Sobrino has written, “There is terrible injustice in today’s world, one which, slowly or quickly, brings the great majority of humanity closer to death. Justice and truth, therefore, are fundamental and urgent demands.”

According to liberationists, justice is the key concept for the Christian conscience of our day; the promotion of justice is the essential requirement of the Gospel message today. Gutierrez writes, “When justice does not exit, God is not known; God is absent.”

So maybe God IS absent in Haiti. Maybe God is not known here because there sure is very little justice in Haiti.

There also is no justice for Haiti’s Fr. Gerry Jean-Juste. The very priest who lived his life standing up for the poor, and feeding the poor in his parish, is in “exile” once again in Florida. His story is well known. Haiti and his parishioners really need him back.

The aging Latin American priests philosophy of preferential option for the poor wasn't wrong. It is the right and fair thing to do. But when the Jean-Justes of the world are terrorized and shackled and marginated and condemned of crimes they didn’t commit, the poor don't have any option. And when the Church leaders themselves don’t advocate for Jean-Juste, the injustice continues. Ignoring Jean-Juste is ignoring Haiti's "deafening cry" today.

Does this young boy pictured below, living with his family in rural Croix-du-Bouquets, look like he has many options?

(See "Liberation Theology After the End of History--The Refusal to Cease Suffering", by Daniel M. Bell, Jr.)

Disorderly Parts

"We carve out order by leaving the disorderly parts out."

William James

Toussaint Louverture

"Does anyone think that men who have enjoyed the benefits of freedom would look on calmly while it is stripped from them? They bore their chains as long as they knew no better way of life than slavery. But today when they have left it, if they had a thousand lives they would sacrifice them all rather than to be again reduced to slavery....We knew how to face a danger to win our liberty; we will know how to face death to keep it."

Toussaint Louverture

Aristide and Education

"Previous governments (in Haiti) never seriously tried to invest in education, and it's clear that our program was always going to be a threat to the status quo. The elite want nothing to do with popular education, for obvious reasons. Again it comes down to this: we can either set out from a position of genuine freedom and independence and work to create a country that respects the dignity of all of its people, or else we will have to accept a position of servile dependence, a country in which the dignity of ordinary people counts for nothing. This is what is at store here."

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, 2006

The First Class Parking Deck

The Peoria Journal Star had an article on March 21, 2007 regarding OSF’s new parking deck. It is an 1,800-spot visitor and patient parking deck. The article reports it is the largest parking deck in Peoria. The deck’s features will include valet service that includes free paring and shuttle cart transportation to the main buildings, as well as heated and air-conditioned stairwells.

The new parking deck costs $37 million dollars. This will accompany the Milestone Project which is OSF’s new 440,000 square foot expansion which will cost $234 million dollars. This Project will include an eight story building with a new Children’s Hospital, as well as an adult cardiac unit, and new emergency and surgery departments.

It is Peoria’s largest building venture ever.

Chris Lofgren, OSF’s spokesman stated, “One of our goals is to eventually have all private rooms. He also noted that OSF is one the verge of acquiring a FOURTH helicopter.

Now consider this:

1. OSF continues to reject former Haitian Hearts/OSF patients for surgery with partial or complete funds offered for their surgeries by Haitian Hearts.

2. Revenues for OSF are in excess of 1.5 billion dollars per year.

3. Revenues for the entire Republic of Haiti in 2003, with a population of 8.3 million people, was less than $300 million dollars.

4. There is approximately 1 physician/6000 people in Haiti’s rural areas. There is 1 physician/400 people in the United States. 40% of Haiti's population has no access to primary health care.

5. Haiti has the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the western Hemisphere. Haiti is located 90 minutes from Miami by air.

6. 25% of Haitian children are chronically malnourished.

7. Only 50% of Haitian children are vaccinated with the standard vaccines.

8. 75% of births in Haiti are accompanied by non-qualified personnel.

9. There are many Haitian children born with congenital heart disease or who acquire rheumatic heart disease and need surgery. Cardiac surgery is not routinely done in Haiti and never done through the Haitian government for charges that the poor can afford. Serious heart disease in children and adults is virtually a death sentence.


The Journal Star article ended with Lofgren stating that while OSF works on its new project, visitors and patients can enjoy the new deck and its valet services.

“Because of the size of (the deck), it is the right thing to do,” Lofgren said beaming. “This is first class, all the way.”

The "Brutal" Society?

In my opinion, Haitians are very patient people. They suffer everyday in all ways imaginable. I wonder how North Americans would act in the same horrific circumstances. I wonder how I would act.

Fifty years ago Haitian writer Jacques Stephen Alexis wrote a book "Compere General Soleil" (General Sun, My Brother). Alexis described a neigborhood in Port-au-Prince in the following fashion:

"In this neighborhood, everbody lived on the street. The people were simple, plain and generous. But when you touched what was theirs, they fell into a rage. Misery had made them intractable on that. They lived on the borderline between instinct and intelligence. They were the products of a society that brutalizes people to a level of semi-animal existence, oriented towards their immediate and constant concern: food. Everything was transformed or deformed by an empty stomach; love, pride, willpower, and tenderness. Lit up by the naked sunlight, their only entertainment was the theater, music hall and cinema of the bustling, noisy street....What other joy could they take in life except to laugh excessively at anything---the quarrels, the street and the fleeting intoxication of a few popular holidays." (Notes from the
Last Testament--The Struggle for Haiti, Michael Deibert).

I wonder what Alexis would write if he strolled through La Saline or Cite Soleil today?

The main stream media enjoys depicting the brutality in Haiti. However, poverty causes hunger and hunger causes desperation. And I have seen much more laughing in Haiti than brutal people. Doesn't that say something good and admirable about the Haitian people?

Food Insecurity Equals Madness

I call it the "belt sign". At a well-known tuberculosis hospital in Port-au-Prince, when men get on the scales to be weighed, their leather belts frequently wrap all the way around to the middle of their backs. They are not only sick--they don't have enough to eat. And many have AIDS.

In Haiti and many "developing" countries, starvation and malnutrition are hurting the fight against AIDS. Food is replacing drugs as the biggest need.

The Associated Press reported that the "U.N. World Food Program has launched nutrition programs in Haiti and 50 other countries with the worst HIV rates, providing monthly food supplements for patients and their families. Without adequate nutrition, AIDS suffers cannot absorb the drugs needed to slow the virus.

"Worldwide, an estimated 3.8 million people with AIDS needed food support this year, possible rising to 6.4 million by 2008, according to the World Food Program."

The British journal HIV Medicine had a study that concluded hungry people are six times more likely to die when taking AIDS medication than those with good nutrition.

Can you imagine not providing enough to eat in the developed world for people that were suffering from AIDS? The Associated Press article stated that Stephen Lewis, special U.N. envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, called the lack of funding for food (for people with AIDS) "madness". Health workers in the "developing" world must view food security as being no less important to a person's health than the right drugs and regular checkups.

(The young lady pictured has AIDS and lives in Cite Soleil. She doesn't get enough to eat either.)

"God comes to the hungry in the form of food."
Mahatma Ghandi

Mountains Behind Mountains

"In Haiti they have a saying, "deye mon gen mon". Beyond the mountains there are more mountains--a beautiful expression, not only of hope and struggle, but of lineage, of history, of ebbing of tides, the passing of clouds and breaths of thick wind covering the mountain ranges. They also have another saying. Bay kou, bliye. Pote mak, sonje. The one who gives the blow, forgets. The one who suffers the hurt, remembers." (Notes from the Last Testament--The Struggle for Haiti, Michael Deibert)

The man in this photo was patiently seated in the waiting room at Saint Catherine's Hospital in Cite Soleil in January. Just one hundred yards from him were young men running with guns, tires were burning in the street, and MINUSTAH was on their daily hunt. And this was at noon.

How much more can the Haitians take? People outside of Haiti like to characterize the Haitians as tough. They are tough but not tough enough if you look at their infant and maternal mortality rates, and their life expectancy, and stare in their faces as they strangle on their blood coughed from their tubercular lungs.

Haiti Breaks Everyone's Back

This Haitian boy has Pott's disease. He has tuberculosis of the vertebral bodies in his thoracic spine which causes the bone to become infected and collapse. He will be a "hunchback" forever.

Whenever there is a case of PEDIATRIC tuberculosis in a community it means that there is an unidagnosed case of ADULT tuberculosis. As a rule, children are noninfectious, but adults are. Such is the case in Haiti where tuberculosis runs rampant in the adult and pediatric populations.

Archbishop Romero

"A Church that doesn't provoke any crises, a Gospel that doesn't unsettle, a Word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is proclaimed--what Gospel is that?"

Archbishop Oscar Romero

(The baby in the wheelbarrow is just outside the entry to St. Catherine's Hospital in Cite Soleil. St. Catherine's is a very small hospital and the only hospital serving 300,000 people in Soleil.)

John Carroll's Posts

In December, 2006, and January, 2007 I posted about 25 posts on a local blog in Peoria. I have compiled those posts and they can be found at John Carroll's Posts.

Most of the titles are highlighted and link back to the blog where comments follow the posts.

Was This Child Worth Four Dollars?

HIV is gobbling up millions of children in the developing world. They either have AIDS or are orphaned by AIDS.

This Haitian boy has AIDS. Whether he will actually receive HAART or important prophylactic antibiotics is difficult to know. For many reasons, Haiti is not patient friendly right now.

A recent study stated that if the drug neviparine is given to the HIV positive mothers during labor and their babies are given neviparine during the first 72 hours of life, 1000 babies per day around the world could avoid AIDS.

Many HIV positive Haitian mothers will deliver this week in Haiti. The cost for treating mother and baby is four dollars US. It is very cost effective medicine. How many will actually receive this medication this week?

Rights of the Child in Haiti---Where are They?

About 16 years ago the UN advanced the cause of children by launching the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The CRC contains 41 articles relevant to children. The reality is that in most countries of the world, including Haiti, children suffer hugely because their rights are neglected.

The impetus for the CRC was the needs of children: not only basic physical needs, but also emotional nurturing, social support, good health-care, and education. Hardly a politician or governmental leader in the world would deny the importance of these issues, but environmental and socioeconomic factors hindering change—such as poverty, disease, and corruption need to be eliminated.

Children in Haiti suffer from parents with very little money in their pockets, poor or no education, insufficient amounts of clean water, lack of basic medical care, fragmented families, and violence. In my opinion, from what I see when I examine kids in the slums, they are not doing well. Their affect is flat, they are too docile, and many are unhappy because their stomachs have little inside. Many are very ill and too weak to cry.

HIV is a big problem also. HIV drugs are available in Haiti for poor children, but in my experience difficult to obtain. Maybe I am not trying hard enough to obtain these medications for these kids and families that have no chance without an advocate.

The Lancet (February 25, 2006) discussed the role of HIV and its direct and indirect consequences for children:

1. Babies born to women infected with HIV, even if not infected themselves, have higher mortality rates and developmental problems than their peers, because of compromised parenting of stressed, ill, and dying mothers.

2. Such children are placed at risk of malnutrition and poor maternal-infant bonding by HIV prevention programmes that encourage early discontinuation of breastfeeding.

3. Older children are involved in caring for sick and dying parents with little outside help and in conditions of poverty, where clean water and adequate sanitation are rare commodities.

4. There are 15 million children globally who have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

5. The economic and social effects of HIV/AIDS on children include malnutrition, poverty, neglect, migration, and homelessness. I witnessed all of these every day in clinic. This increases their vulnerability to a range of consequences including illiteracy, poverty, child labor, sexual and other forms of exploitation, HIV infection, and unemployment in adulthood.

6. Psychological effects are depression, guilt, and fear, possibly leading to long-term mental-health problems.

7. In Haiti public assistance for the most vulnerable people is largely non-existent. The Haitian government is not really concerned with the article in the CRC that states that the Haitian government shall support parent substitutes in the responsibility of raising children. Orphanages in Haiti are in a state of disarray.

8. The crisis that children who are affected by HIV/AIDS are facing remains hidden in the slum where hardships of individual children, and those who care for them, go unnoticed. The economic burden to care for these children is borne by those least able to afford it---the households that care for these children, not the government.

9. Guaranteeing the rights of ALL children who live in communities affected by AIDS is more beneficial than singling out specific groups. Systems-based responses are justified by the large numbers of children involved, whose health and well being are affected by poor living conditions and limited access to services. A continuum of responses is needed with help for the extremely vulnerable population of children, and—at the other end—better access for all children to health, education, and welfare provision.

Haitian Analysis Article

Please go to Haitian Analysis regarding Soleil.

Haiti and Having Babies

The maternal mortality rate in Haiti is the highest in the Western Hemisphere. The maternal mortality rate is 523/100,000 women. What this means is that during pregnancy or within six weeks of delivery, 523 of every 100,000 women who have babies die in Haiti. The maternal mortality rate in the United States is 7/100,000. Black women in the United States have a maternal mortality rate of about 20/100,000.

The excess deaths are due to poverty, structural violence, and fear of being shot. With these three factors discouraging care, Haitian women do not receive adequate prenatal or perinatal care and die from complications of delivery such as bleeding and infection, and eclampsia.

Doctors can help with bleeding, infection, and eclampsia but need to do much more in preventing these complications by addressing the real issues that allow these medical complications to kill their patients. That is the frightening part for physicians around the world and the part we never learned in medical school or residency.

Chevalier

Chevalier was born with congenital heart disease. She needs surgery as soon as possible.

Are we going to ignore her?

Myrtha

Myrtha is 24 years old and lives in Port-au-Prince. She has valvular heart disease from rheumatic fever. She lives in a state of congestive heart failure because too much blood gets trapped in her lungs. She is very short of breath when she exerts herself.

Her family would like her to stay alive and so would she. And when I told her that I have been unable to find a hospital in the United States to accept her for heart surgery, she told me to keep praying.