Worlds Apart

“I know the color of that blood; it is arterial blood. I cannot be deceived in that color. That drop of blood is my death warrant. I must die.”

The British poet, John Keats, trained as a physician, gave himself this accurate prognosis in 1820 after an episode of hemoptysis (coughing blood). He realized he had contracted tuberculosis. He died soon afterward at the age of 25.

The New England Journal of Medicine, March 13, 2008, has two lead articles regarding tuberculosis. The articles are about tuberculosis in Africa and India. Below are key comments and figures from these articles mixed in with statistics regarding Haiti’s current epidemic of tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is a terrible disease. Who ever called it “consumption” was right. People get trapped in their tiny little bodies and are unable to provide for themselves or their families. They are indeed consumed by their illness.

Tuberculosis is also highly contagious and can be spread just by talking with someone with active tuberculosis. Children are very susceptible to this disease.

Tuberculosis ruins people, families, and society.

The bottom line that needs to be stated early is that tuberculosis is preventable, treatable, and a disease of poverty. And their have been curative medications available for over 50 years.

So here is the depressing news regarding tuberculosis:

1. Africa is facing the worst tuberculosis epidemic since the advent of the antibiotic era. Africa, home to 11% of the world’s population, carries 29% of the global burden of tuberculosis cases and 34% of related deaths. More than half a million people die each year from tuberculosis in Africa.

2. During the 1990’s tuberculosis killed more people worldwide than in any other decade in history. Tuberculosis medications have been available since the 1950’s.

3. The average incidence (all new cases per 100,000 population) of tuberculosis in African counties more than doubled between 1990 and 2005, from 149 to 343. This is in contrast to the stable or declining rates in most other regions of the world.

4. The estimated incidence of tuberculosis in Haiti in 2004 was 306. And I don’t really believe this number. My guess is that tuberculosis is vastly underreported in Haiti.

5. The estimated incidence of tuberculosis in India in 2008 is 200/100,000 population. The rate of confirmed infection in India is startling. Researchers at a medical school in northern India found an incidence of about 17 new cases of active tuberculosis per 1000 medical residents per year (as compared with about 2 cases per 1000 in the general population and 0.05 in the general U.S. population.) Thus, one take home message from these horrible statistics regarding young Indian physicians is the compelling evidence of nosocomial transmission…tuberculosis is very contagious.

6. The estimated incidence of tuberculosis in the United States in 2006 was 3.4 cases. This was the lowest TB incidence ever recorded in the United States. The TB rate among foreign born persons in the United States was 9.5 times that of U.S.-born persons. The TB rates among blacks were 8.4 times higher than rates among whites.

7. Yes, you read these numbers correctly. How can one compare “rates of tuberculosis” of 300 in Haiti to 3 in the United States? Haiti is 90 minutes by air from Miami.

8. The growth of the tuberculosis epidemic in Africa and Haiti is attributable to several factors, the most important being the HIV epidemic. Autopsy studies have shown that 30-40% of HIV-infected adults die from tuberculosis.

9. South African gold miners who have one of the highest incidence rates of tuberculosis in the world, but rates remained stable in the 90’s among HIV-negative miners, while rates among HIV-positive miners increased by a factor of 10. (The cellular immunocompetence of this population became impaired, and thus susceptibility to tuberculosis increased.)

10. By the way, the incidence of tuberculosis in Haiti is higher than in South Africa. Incidence rates of tuberculosis in Yemen, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Guyana, Thailand, Russia, Romania, North Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, Mongolia, Nepal, China, Gabon, Bolivia, Botswana, India, Sudan, Laos, Ghana, Guinea, Pakistan, Niger, and Chad are all LESS than Haiti.

11. The ability of African, Indian, and Haitian health care systems to respond to, manage, and contain the growing number of cases of tuberculosis is constrained by limitations of funding facilities, personnel, drug supplies, and laboratory capacity. Bad infrastructures yield bad tuberculosis statistics.

12. Another critical factor concerns early diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, which limits the spread of the disease and reduces deaths. Again, the infrastructure and the public health capabilities of the that society dictate how quickly tuberculosis is diagnosed and treated.

13. Sensitive tests for diagnosis of a disease need to be present to diagnose efficiently. Throughout Africa, diagnosis rests on the microscopical detection of acid-fast bacilli (the TB germ) in sputum, an insensitive technique that is particularly ill suited to the detection of tuberculosis in HIV-infected patients, who have fewer bacilli in their sputum and have more extrapulmonary tuberculosis than HIV-negative patients. WHO estimates that only half of all persons with smear-positive tuberculosis are identified. Modern culture and nucleic acid-amplification systems are rarely available.

14. As a result, many people remain ill and contagious with tuberculosis for prolonged periods before the disease is detected, and thousands die without ever having received a diagnosis of tuberculosis. Even with diagnosis, the average rate of successful treatment is less than 70%, which makes both relapse and the emergence of drug resistance common.

15. The availability of point-of-care diagnostic tests could substantially reduce the incidence of and mortality from tuberculosis and prompt earlier treatment, thus limiting transmission. (Point-of-care tests are tests that can be done quickly and easily at the site, rather than waiting weeks for culture results to return.) And rapid detection of drug resistant strains would facilitate earlier access to appropriate therapy. Better use of existing, highly sensitive culture techniques could reduce mortality rates associated with tuberculosis by 20% or more.

16. A new tuberculosis vaccine could protect future generations.

17. Interventions directed at people with the highest risk, including families of patients with tuberculosis or HIV infection could be extremely effective. But this would entail giving the "preferential medical option" to the poor. Who wants to do that?

18. For patients with HIV, preventative therapy with isoniazid can reduce tuberculosis incidence, yet less than 1% of all HIV-infected people worldwide who could benefit from this intervention receive it. Antiretroviral therapy alone is insufficient to control tuberculosis, but analyses suggest that isoniazid significantly augments the effect of HIV drugs.
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Since the resurgence of TB in the United States during 1985-1992, the annual TB rate has decreased steadily. The TB rate in 2006 was the lowest recorded since national reporting began in 1953. The US public health system responded.

Tuberculosis is a disease of poor people around the world. And as we all know, diseases of the poor are frequently ignored. Maybe, due to the fact that people travel and tuberculosis is so highly contagious, the people that have will take more interest in eradicating tuberculosis.

In Haiti, Africa, India and many other developing countries, increased investments in research, health care systems, diagnostic laboratories, human resources, and public health services needs to occur to control the disease, death, and destruction caused by tuberculosis.

References:

New England Journal of Medicine-- March 13, 2008
Journal of the American Medical Association-- April 25, 2007
Global Health Reporting.org

A Just Social Order

The Lancet published a series of articles in 2005 regarding the religions of the world and how their philosophies relate to health.

Hazel Markwell wrote about the “Catholic View” in the September 24, 2005 issue.

Below are some salient features from Markwell’s article:

1. The Catholic understanding of sickness, suffering, and death is grounded in a belief in Jesus Christ who, as the incarnation of God, suffered, died, and resurrected.

2. In light of this faith and hope for an afterlife, Catholics accept that although an effort must be made to eliminate sickness, suffering, and death, these things can also have a positive meaning.

2. In Catholic bioethics, two basic human values ground all others: human dignity, and the interconnectedness of every individual. The value of dignity of the individual arises from the belief that life has intrinsic worth because people are created in the image and likeness of God. Respect for human life results from this principle.

3. Catholics believe that people are stewards, rather than owners of their own bodies, and are accountable to God for the life that has been given to them, and for this reason life is said to be sacred.

4. Gaudium et Spes, one of the documents of Vatican II, makes the point that the dignity of the human person lies above all in the fact that he or she is called into a relationship with God. As social beings who are connected to each other in society, we also share a responsibility for one another.

5. Belief in the value of the common good calls us to promote a just social order. This just order demands that we remain true to the value of charity or solidarity, in which we have a responsibility to respond to others in need, in particular the poor.

6. This responsibility requires a commitment not only to the poor in our midst but also to those throughout the world.

7. However, the huge gap between the rich and the poor of the world is widening, in large part due to the debt owed by developing countries.

8. The impetus and foundation for this commitment to the poor lies in a notion of justice that is grounded in love and an adherence to the message in the Gospel of Matthew (25:40): “…in so far as you did this to one of th4 least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me”.

Father Gerard Jean-Juste practiced and believes in the common good in Haiti. Hopefully, he will be back in Haiti soon practicing his Catholic beliefs which promote the common good.

OSF in Peoria needs to lift their embargo on Haitian Hearts patients and follow the Catholic philosophy as outlined in the Lancet. Three more young Haitian women will die soon unless OSF sees the light.

Haitians Eat Dirt

Go to Casaubon's Book to see a good article.

Father Rick and Respect for the Dead

Father Rick Frechette is a Passionate Priest and medical doctor. He lives and works in Haiti. Cyberspace does not have enough room to contain what he actually does each day. He is indispensible for many reasons.

Father Rick and his order have great respect for the dead. In Haiti, he has the opportunity to show his respect often. Father prays and personally buries the deceased in a kind and holy fashion.

One day on Route National 1 just outside of PAP, Fr. Rick and his "team" stopped our truck and we got out and waited for another missionary to deliver the remains of a newly deceased.

We stood on the side of the hard road as small group of people gathered and sold some popcorn that we ate out of small paper sacks.

Sure enough, after about 15 minutes, a scraggly white van approached from the north and stopped when it reached us.

The back door of the van was opened by a white, happy appearing missionary and we pulled out the body which was wrapped in a white sheet. He appeared to be a "middle aged" man without socks or shoes. No family members or anyone besides the missionary was with the man.

We carefully placed the deceased man in a cardboard box which was shaped just like a fancy, expensive wooden casket. Father Rick is able to obtain these boxes for a reasonable price.

Fr. Rick prayed over the deceased and sang a few songs. We then loaded the casket off of the hard road and shoved it into the back of Fr. Rick's vehicle. We turned around and headed back to Port-au-Prince.

When we arrived at the cemetery, a couple of young men and an old man greeted us and we carried in the cardboard casket and lowered it into a cement vault. No name was present on the vault.

A few more prayers were said and that was it. Another Haitian successfully buried by a priest who respects both life and death.




Below is an article written by Father Rick and posted on IJDH Haiti Justice Blog by Brian Concannon.




December 6, 2007

Saint Nicholas and the Antichrist


HOW BEAUTIFUL UPON THE MOUNTAINS ARE THE FEET of the one who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace; who brings the good news of salvation; who announces to Zion, You God reigns! (Isaiah 52:7)


St. Nicholas surely had this kind of feet. His pilgrim journeys not only gladdened the heart of humanity in his day, but his reputation was so great that it has carried his name forward for 1700 years, to our own day.



Certainly, the centuries have changed him. The bishop’s miter that graced his head has flopped over and gained white trim, his red bishop robes have turned into an oversized pantsuit, and a thousand generations of use have slurred his name into “Santa Clause”. But unlike many saints whose popularity is confined to a region or a country, St Nicholas is one of the few saints known and loved in almost all the world. Even in his secular form, he represents wisdom, kindness and generosity, as should any present day successor of the apostles, known to us as bishops.



St Nicholas was able to live out a vibrant and hopeful message in a time of great suffering, controversy and confusion. The gladness of his news, when contrasted with very dark human experiences of his day, is like a bright star in the black velvet, midnight sky.


Our Christian tradition makes no denial of darkness, not even when the extra lights of the holidays do their best to make the darkness vanish in an artificial way. Sometimes the darkness we must fight is inside where Christmas tree lights can never reach.


Recently in the vast Port-au-Prince slum called Cite Soleil, a sickly young woman asked me to help her. Her name was Solange. She was so small and slight, I was surprised when she told me she was in her twenties. When I listened to her heart, the gushy murmurs made me picture her heart valves as thick, shredded sponges. I was sure she had valve damage from previous rheumatic fever, which is still very prevalent here. A cardiologist friend confirmed this and thought surgery was still possible, so I arranged for Solange to go to Dominic Republic for surgery.


A few days after Solange left, we had bad rains, then terrible rains, then worse rains still, and then a full stop flood. We went into high gear, helping thousands of flooded neighbors get out of the water to shelter. While in the midst of all the flood chaos, I got a call from the Dominican Republic saying that Solange had died during the night. They didn’t know what to do with her body or how to let her family in Haiti know that she was dead.


So we handled a disaster within a disaster, using cell phones during flood relief to arrange the return of Solange’s body to Haiti by airplane, and to call the family to come to find us in the floods so we could give the news personally and not by phone.


My head started to spin. The family will probably blame us for her death. They will want money. They will say I should have left her alone, that the trip was too tiring for her. When the body comes on the plane it will difficult getting the body through immigration. They will need to be bribed. The family will want us to pay for the funeral, etc, etc, etc….


Fatigue, frustration, and cynicism know how to twist the mind and heart. They are the weapons of the Antichrist.


Having worked myself up into an angry and defensive posture, when the family asked us to drive the body all the way to Thiotte ( a six hour drive), I recited in full voice a list of everything we had already done for Solange, and what it cost in terms of money and effort. Soon the force of my words started to fade. There was her body, in front of me, in a simple coffin. There had been no problems at immigration, no bribes to pay. Just compassionate officials who helped things move rapidly for the grieving family of paupers. I realized with embarrassment that I should be using my mouth for blessing her body, for praying for her family standing before me in their grief, and not for my unsolicited defense. The family was kind and understanding. No demands. No blame. They were only asking for a ride to Thiotte. If we couldn’t help, they would try to manage another way.


Then I was completely caught off guard. The family told me they were going home to Thiotte because their simple home was destroyed by the water and mud of the floods, and they had no place to go with Solange. They had no place but home. There life was all loss. Then, they thanked me for sending Solange to the Dominican Republic. If she hadn’t gone, they said, she would have had a terrible death in the water and mud.


Who had the sicker heart? Me or Solange? How did St Nicholas, and so many great people through the ages, keep the right heart in the face of danger and stress and disaster? They had a special gift, a keen intelligence as to what was really happening inside people and in their true situations, that could not be blunted or distorted by preconceptions or habits of response based on fatigue or cynicism. What a great gift to ask for at Christmas, from the real Santa Clause- a keen, intelligent heart.


Esmine was kidnapped last Thursday. Yes, it is all starting up again. After coming out of the bank with a good bit of money to pay for the schooling of her three young children, she was grabbed by strangers and gone. How? Had someone inside the bank tipped off the ones outside? Was she betrayed? Days pass, negotiating with kidnappers for money the family did not have. They were threatening to kill her. These are not idle threats, as two kidnapped children had been killed during the past ten days. I put up half the ransom for Esmine. I even went to do the drop off for the kidnappers. “Leave the money at the third telephone pole, on the left, after the bridge.”


How I despised what the kidnappers were doing, when I remembered the children that were killed by them and how they died, when I thought of Esmine’s distress and her distraught children at home. I even felt anger against Esmine, for getting kidnapped in the first place and somehow pulling me into it. I wanted to hide out by the pole and beat them when they came for the money. “Lord, keep our hearts from becoming like those of our oppressors!” It really is all about heart, a struggle with darkness in the heart.


Emerline was released at four in the morning, and came to see me at the hospital right away. She had been beaten, she was humiliated, she was full of fear of the streets, of society, of the future. She rolled on the ground in front of me, crying out her grief, but also sputtering out words of thanks for our help in freeing her. I couldn’t get her to stand up, and I didn’t have the heart to look at her on the ground so defeated, so I looked to the sky above. The moon was a bright crescent, but its full round border was visible by the aurora of the far off sun. And, to the left of the crescent in all its glory, was the morning star.


I understood immediately. The moon was Esmine. Her glory, her godlight, was diminished by the dark evil of her captivity and humiliation, but was faintly still there. The crescent was the part of her that still enjoyed light, and somehow promised a healing light for the remaining silhouette. God was the aurora, the sun underneath and unseen, a subtle light illuminating Esmine’s wound that could be healed by hope. And the morning star? That’s the best part. The morning star is you, and me, and anyone, anywhere, at any while, who stands in solidarity with the one who is in darkness and the shadow of death- to offer even imperfect or limited light. This offer is antidote to the Antichrist.


You can’t believe how hard it is to bury the dead. No one wants them. We bury about 100 a week. Their poverty and humiliation still hound them after they are dead. Their disgraceful condition, their lack of a place even to drop dead on, their exile from a final resting place, are haunting realities. When we recently brought a score of these destitute to their final resting place last week, we were met with a posse of peasants who demanded money and would not let us pass to the twenty graves we had dug. There was quite a fight between my team, who were there to manage all the coffins and the graves, and the peasants who insisted they could make a fortune on that land by saving it for a cell phone company antenna. They insisted their deal with the company was getting ruined by our bones.


I knew it was State land. I knew the dead have been dumped there for 30 years. But I had no energy left to fight and I called for the gravediggers, the team of 20 pall bearers, and all the coffins to go to a place in Cite Soleil the Mayor said we could have for funerals, but which we had not yet prepared for lack of resources. My team refused to leave and wanted to defend the dead. The small music band that always comes to play for the funerals (I call them the “other” grateful dead) struck up a lively tune. The fight was on. The police soon came, and went to the highest bidder….me. Yes, I could outdo the protesting peasants- gas money, a little money for lunch, a little extra for Christmas. The dead now rested in peace.


The human heart beats in darkness, against darkness, and easily becomes darkness. But it longs for light, true light. At Christmas we celebrate the presence of a new heart beating among us. Small at first, but over a very few years it grows in strength, wisdom and grace. If we want, this sacred heart beats first next to ours, then with ours, and then in ours. Each beat generates light, the true light that the darkness cannot overcome. Darkness loses its power, and falls from its throne as victor. It becomes simply “opponent”. Even its opposition is self defeating, since it only increases longing for the Sacred Heart, whose power and light we come to share. This power and light reveal His name, but we find we have always known it. His name is “Wonderful, Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”


May it be ever in our hearts and on our lips.


Fr Richard Frechette CP


Port au Prince


Posted by Brian Concannon on December 20, 2007

OSF Continues Dangerous Policy

I have a family member who has been very sick for the past 6 months.

This person is followed by an OSF physician who we have known and trusted for years. I sent this OSF physician an e mail the other day at his OSF e mail address.

This e mail contained an up to date medical problem list to keep him totally informed regarding the family member’s acute and chronic problems. It explained how she was regarding vital signs, oxygen level, blood tests, medications, diet, activity, etc. A very important e mail.

He did not receive my e mail at his OSF address. So I sent it again to his personal e mail address and he did receive it.

The OSF physician called me Sunday night (last night) to discuss at length each medical problem on the list. They are all important.

My wife was followed by an OSF provider as well. Her e mails went unanswered by the provider because he did not receive them.

My son, did not receive his surgery at OSF last summer. Time drug on as documented on a former post. So we took him out of state to a well known pediatric center where he was taken care of very quickly.

My e mails have been blocked by OSF which is of course obstructing medical communication with my family and their doctors.

In the meantime Haitian Hearts patients continue to suffer and die in Haiti due to OSF’s policy of rejecting all of my patients.

The founding Sisters of the Third Order of OSF would not be happy about how their hospital, founded on a philosophy of love, is actually functioning in 2008.

When the Poor Die from Hunger

Wadner Pierre has written a great article.

Seems like the story regarding Haitians eating mud pies in Cite Soleil has bothered many people around the world.

Shaquille and Haiti

Shaquille O'Neal is the center for the Miami Heat. Almost everyone knows that.

Shaq lives 90 minutes by air from the man and his son pictured above who are homeless on the streets of Haiti. Hardly anyone knows that.

Shaq's messy divorce proceedings and his checkbook were recently revealed.

Shaq's MONTHLY expenditures:

* $156,116 on mortgages
* $110,505 on vacations
* $60,417 on gifts
* $26,560 on babysitters
* $24,300 on gasoline
* $22,190 on maids
* $17,220 on clothes
* $12,775 on food
* $500,000 on income tax

Comparing those who have the most to those who have the least (and are very close neighbors in this hemisphere) is painful. (See Miami Herald article.)

Neither individual, Shaq nor the homeless Haitian man, are benefiting from their economic situations. I doubt either man is a "bad" man.

The inequity and the problems of what too little or too much cause is what is bad.

It Really Doesn't Have To Be This Way...by Tonya Sneed

On 1/26/08, Tonya Sneed wrote:

January 26 is forever etched into my mind. Today is the anniversary of my cousin's death. I still remember where I was when I got the phone call from my mom. Jim was standing next to me in the lobby of my college dorm. I remember the shock, the unbelievable-ness of it all, taking pills to help myself sleep. I knew how deeply this affected her parents. I know how deeply it still affects them. No one can ever know the measure of their suffering.

Ya know, the Buddhists say that life is suffering.

Death and suffering are things that I never can quite get my arms around. I don't want to. Don't want to accept it as a natural part of life. It's too unnatural. That we are just here for this brief moment and then we're gone. I can't grasp that. That some people and animals spend most of that brief moment, even all of it, suffering, makes me feel insane in those dark moments when I try to ponder it. So I try not to ponder it. But I can never pretend for long. The darkness always comes back.

I suppose it's my own internal struggle against the forces of suffering and death that have led me to the causes that I now actively support. Animal rights, death penalty abolition, anti-war movement, etc., are all very much anti-death and anti-suffering endeavors. Indeed, even reforestation in Haiti is an anti-death effort. It is an attempt, however feeble, to create a world of life-giving trees.

Wednesday night Jim got upset as he told me about a picture of an Iraqi woman in the paper. She has her head in her hand and is crying, after having waited 3 days in line for gasoline for heating. It's cold in Iraq, and she's still in line, wearing these house slippers. There are U.S. soldiers with their maddening weapons stand next to her. It's an awful photo -- am surprised the A.P. let us see it. Jim said to me, "Tonya, it doesn't have to be this way! It doesn't have to be this way!"

I agree with him. I'm mad, too. But the moment reminds me why I love him so much. His ability to empathize, to see things from others' perspectives, is a rare and beautiful, though often painful gift.

This week we learned that Dhiaa's father was injured in a car accident -- he broke his leg when someone rammed his car just because Dhiaa's father is Shi'a. Dhiaa insists that before the war, being Shi'a or Sunni was a non-issue. In fact, his mother is Sunni. I learned the same lesson from an Iraqi woman who risked her life to come to the U.S. a couple of years ago. She told us that the Shi'a and Sunni regularly intermarried before the war. And, the blog Baghdad Burning attests to this. What we have in Iraq is business as usual by the U.S. military. Divide and conquer.

Thank you, all of you, for your efforts against suffering and death. It really doesn't have to be this way. I hope that together we can construct a different kind of world where hugging and dancing (did you get to see the You Tube video?) and sharing and justice and peace and the magical forces of love reign.

tonya



"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable."

---Arundhati Roy

State of Denial

See comments at the bottom of Mud Pies in Soleil.

See article below from the Miami Herald.

Posted on Tue, Jan. 29, 2008

Poor Haitians resort to eating dirt
By JONATHAN M. KATZ

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Charlene said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the slim 6 pounds 3 ounces he weighed at birth.

Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too," she said.

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well.

The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean, where island nations depend on imports and food prices are up 40 percent in places.

The global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries. Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit in December to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large regional farms to reduce dependence on imports.

At the market in the La Saline slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say.

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Merchants truck the dirt from the central town of Hinche to the La Saline market, a maze of tables of vegetables and meat swarming with flies. Women buy the dirt, then process it into mud cookies in places such as Fort Dimanche, a nearby shanty town.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun.

The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets.

A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but can also strengthen the immunity of fetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.

Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.

"Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it," said Dr. Gabriel Thimothee, executive director of Haiti's health ministry.

Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.

"I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," she said. "I know it's not good for me."





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© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

Haitians, Pregnancy, and HIV...What can be Done? Alot.

Please see the article below. This article is not addressing the pregnant patient with obvious HIV. This article is about ACUTE HIV in pregnant women and what can be done about it.

Rates of perinatal tranmission of HIV in the United States have decreased from >25% before 1994 to <2% in 2006. This is due to the use of maternal antiretroviral treatment and infant prophylaxis.

The HIV scourge for Haitian newborns could be diminished dramatically with better effort to screen their mothers.
--------------------

Detecting Acute HIV Infection During Pregnancy

Five pregnant women with acute HIV infection were identified at publicly funded testing sites in North Carolina and subsequently treated; none transmitted HIV to their infants.

Prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission has been a major success in the U.S. However, a small number of infants still are born infected in this country each year. To address this problem, the CDC has renewed its efforts to ensure that all pregnant women are tested for HIV antibodies (ACC Oct 6 2006), but, even if this strategy is fully implemented, cases of acute HIV infection will still be missed. Now, researchers describe the detection of acute HIV infection among pregnant women in North Carolina, where nucleic-acid amplification testing was added to standard antibody testing at publicly funded sites in 2002 (for more details on this testing strategy, see ACC May 11 2005).

From November 2002 through April 2005, 187,135 women were tested for HIV at such sites. Of these women, 443 (0.2%) were found to be HIV infected; most were black and were probably infected heterosexually. Fifteen of the women had acute HIV infection (i.e., were HIV-antibody negative but HIV-RNA positive) at the time of testing, including 5 who were pregnant (median, 15 weeks’ gestation; median viral load, 88,787 copies/mL). Antiretroviral therapy was prescribed for all five women within 14 days of diagnosis. Four of the women were adherent and had viral loads <400 copies/mL at delivery; the other woman had a viral load >40,000 copies/mL at delivery, necessitating a cesarean section. None of the infants tested positive for HIV DNA during the first 4 to 6 months of life.

Comment: In this study, 3.4% of women with newly diagnosed HIV infection were acutely infected, and one third of these women were pregnant at the time of diagnosis. The cost of adding HIV RNA testing to antibody testing was minimal: $3.63 per specimen tested. North Carolina has taken the lead in implementing a new approach to HIV testing that has proven to be effective. Isn’t it time for all states to start doing the same thing?

— Carlos del Rio, MD

Published in AIDS Clinical Care January 18, 2008

Citation(s):
Patterson KB et al. Frequent detection of acute HIV infection in pregnant women. AIDS 2007 Nov; 21:2303.

Culture of Death

Was Henry Hyde debating the Partial-Birth Abortion Act or discussing the treatment of Haitians? "Partially-born" human beings and the Haitian people seem to have much in common.

"This is not a debate about religious doctine or even about public policy options.
It is a debate about our understanding of human dignity, what it means to be a member of the human family, even though tiny, powerless and unwanted. We are knee deep in a culture of death...Look, in this advanced democracy, in the year 2000, is it our crowning achievement that we have learned to treat people as things? Our moment in history is marked by a mortal conflict between a culture of life and a culture of death. God put us in the world to do noble things, to love and to cherish our fellow human beings, not to destroy them. Today we must choose sides.

---Henry Hyde during House floor debate on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, 2000.

The Tormented

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

--Elie Wiesel

Haitians Equal Courage

Jhiny is 13 years old and was born with heart disease.

Jhiny, her mom, and brothers and sisters (all eight of them) live in a tiny one room cinder block house in Port-au-Prince.

They have no stove, running water, or toilet. They have occasional electricity when the State of Haiti turns it on.

Jhiny has gone to school for seven years with her sick heart. She is an excellent student.

Jhiny speaks and writes French and Haitian Creole.

Jhiny came to the United States without any family members or friends. She speaks very little English.

Jhiny is polite and industrious. Her host family in the United States love her.

Last night Jhiny spoke with confidence about her date today with the Bard-Parker knife.

Early this morning she crawled onto an operating table and went to sleep. Alone.

Her heart was fixed this morning by a very good pediatric heart surgeon and an experienced cardiac team of nurses and perfusionists.

Jhiny is off the bypass pump as I post.

Jhiny is courageous.

Jhiny is Haitian.


(Jhiny is in the blue dress holding her little sister.)

Should Saint Francis Medical Center Remain Catholic? Part VI

Directive Number 6 of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services:

"A Catholic health care organization should be a responsible steward of the health care resources available to it. Collaboration with other health care providers, in ways that do not compromise Catholic social and moral teaching, can be an effective means of such stewardship."

Therefore, why wasn't Directive Number 6 followed by Bishop Jenky and Monsignor Rohlfs, the OSF Sisters, and OSF-SFMC administration?

When the Diocese lost their nerve regarding "social responsibility" for sick and dying Haitian Hearts children, why did the Diocese not "collaborate" with other children's hospitals around the U.S. and Canada and elsewhere, to help us find the kids medical care? Why did OSF not "collaborate" with other medical centers? It would have been very easy to do.

Just because OSF in Peoria wouldn't help these children any longer, did not give the Diocese an out. The Diocese (Bishop Jenky and Monsignor Rohlfs) should have publically stated that Haitian Hearts and the Diocese would collaborate with other medical centers even if OSF did not want to participate. And they could have thanked OSF for what they had done for Haitian children and said that it was time to move on.

But this was just too hard for the Diocese to do. They did not want to embarrass OSF in any way. The Diocese stated in the media that all parties worked in good faith which was obviously not correct. When Monsignor Rohlfs threatened me and stated that the Diocese would come out in the media against me if I filed a petition for a Tribunal Court, this was not good faith on his part. And when Bishop Jenky told me that I needed to come to confession to him for "killing 18 Haitian children" if I pursued the Tribunal Court, this did not seem to be in good faith either.

And Catholics wonder how the church sex abuse scandal happened over the past 50 years??

Finally, Directive Number 9 states:

"Employees of a Catholic health care institution must respect and uphold the religious mission of the institution and adhere to these Directives. They should mantain professional standards and promote the institution's commitment to human dignity and the common good."

OSF has fallen short of this Directive also and our Catholic Diocese is a big part of the problem.

Haiti's Debt

See this link for an excellent review of Haiti's financial problems.

Should Saint Francis Medical Center Remain Catholic? Part V

The Bishop's Synod of 1971 summed up the reason for the church's intense concern for matters of social justice:

"Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to be a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the church's mission for the redemption of the human race, and its liberation from every oppressive situation."

The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (Directives) place great emphasis on social justice. The Directives have set forth several principles:

1. Sacredness of Life: Catholic health care is dedicated to promoting human dignity and the sacredness of life, from the moment of conception until death. Derived from this principle is the right to life and the right to protect it through adequate health care. In the bishops' view, this first principle is not a religious principle; that is, it is not derived primarily and fundamentally from the teaching of Christ, though it is certainly in accord with that teaching. The principle is based on human experience and human reason.

2. The Option for the Poor: The second principle, to have "an option for the poor", is derived primarily from the teaching and tradition of the church. Indeed the Directives refer to caring for the poor as "a biblical mandate".

How is OSF-SFMC following the Directives when they:

1. Refuse to accept Haitian Hearts patients that were operated at OSF in the past and need repeat surgery, even when full funding or partial funding is offered for their care? Where is responsible stewardship exercised while Haitian children are dying during OSF's 500 million dollar campus renovation in Peoria?

2. Delayed surgery of at least one Haitian child that was in Peoria awaiting surgery?

3. Attempted to divert funds dedicated for Haitian children to OSF-Children's Hospital of Illinois?

Where is "social justice" here?

Where is the Catholic Diocese of Peoria? When Monsignor Rohlfs was notified that I felt Haitian surgery was delayed on a Haitian baby that suffered a cardiac arrest with his host family in the Peoria area, Monsignor Rohlfs looked unconcerned and asked me to "let me know if it happens again..."

Should Saint Francis Medical Center remain Catholic?

Should Saint Francis Medical Center Remain Catholic?--Part IV

In the last 15 years the Catholic Diocese of Peoria has been faced with circumstances that have been truly difficult for them.

OSF-SFMC pushed the Diocese hard to allow oral contraceptives to be written by OSF physicians under the guise of "limited private practice". This was presented by OSF Corporate Ethicist Joseph Piccione and others from OSF. Monsignor Steven Rohlfs and Bishop John Meyer were involved in making the decison.

What does "limited private practice" mean? Under this plan agreed upon by the Diocese and OSF, an OSF physician can write oral contraceptives when he/she suddenly is no longer an employee of OSF while he writes the prescription on his own prescription pad. This supposedly puts a "firewall" between the oral contraceptive and OSF. This plan is hard to believe by most people that hear about it for the first time, but functions in OSF facilites throughout the Midwest. Keeping OSF financially sound drove the plan in the 1990's when Mr. Piccione was hired by OSF.

When the Diocese and OSF go to such extremes regarding an issue so sacred and important to the Catholic Church (oral contraceptives), I do not believe it is difficult for OSF or the Diocese to ignore dying Haitian children.

The Ethical and Religious Directives intent is not to find ways around Humane Vitae or the teachings of the bible regarding the poor.

The Collection of Selected Readings referenced below states the following:

"If a Catholic health care facility were to fail to adhere to the Directives, it might lose its identification as Catholic. That is, if the Directives are not observed, affiliation with the Catholic Church in a particular diocese could be withdrawn by the diocesan bishop. Because some Catholic health care facilities are actually owned by a diocese or a religious congregation, the loss of Catholic identification could also result in the closing of the facility. In other cases, when the facility is owned by a board of trustees, the trustees might decide to continue to manage the facility even though it would no longer be affiliated with the Catholic Church."

(From Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services: Seeking Understanding--A Collection of Selected Readings. The Catholic Health Association.)

Should Saint Francis Medical Center Remain Catholic?--Part III

The preamble to the Ethical and Religious Directives states:

The Directives “are concerned primarily with institutionally based Catholic health care services. They address the sponsors, trustees, administrators, chaplains, physicians, health care personnel, and patients or residents of these institutions and services.”

Therefore the Board of Directors at OSF, administrators at Saint Francis Medical Center (SFMC), chaplains at SFMC, and the ethicists at SFMC and OSF Corporate, and the OSF legal team, are all being called upon to follow the norms in the Directives.

Individuals at OSF included in the above would include Doug Marshall who is OSF’s attorney. Mr. Marshall has written that OSF-SFMC will not accept Haitian Hearts patients. Keith Steffen is OSF-SFMC CEO and Paul Kramer, Executive Director of Children’s Hospital of Illinois, acted in ways that were not supportive of sick Haitian children. Mr. Kramer delayed surgery in Peoria and also called the American Consulate in Haiti. OSF ethicists Joseph Piccione and Gerald McShane sent mixed messages or no messages supporting Haitian children in need of heart surgery.

As the source referenced below states, if the above named individuals to not want to follow the norms of the Directives, they are free to disaffiliate from the Catholic institution if they think their consciences would be violated.

The Catholic bishops state:

“The dialogue between medical science and Christian faith has for its primary purpose the common good of all human persons.”

In Peoria’s situation, the Directives have not been promulgated by Bishop Daniel Jenky. With this weakness, OSF-SFMC has been allowed to ignore certain aspects of the good will and good actions that the Directives implore be done by Catholic health care facilities.

Should Saint Francis Medical Center remain Catholic?

(From Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services:Seeking Understanding--A Collection of Selected Readings. The Catholic Health Association.)

Should Saint Francis Medical Center Remain Catholic?--Part II

The Order of Saint Francis (OSF) advertises their Mission statements in the secular press and repeats these statements at many retreats and orientations given their thousands of employees.

Jesus is the one sent by God who came to reestablish God’s reign among all peoples. In Luke’s account of the Gospel, Jesus outlined what being God’s Mission in the world required of him by applying the words of the prophet Isaiah to himself: “The spirit of the Lord has anointed me and has sent me to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed, to announce the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Lk 4:18-19).

Everything that Jesus did, that is, his ministry, was done as a means of making the substance of this declaration reality. Although his actions focused often on the physical needs of person, the effect of his activities in response to these needs had an impact and importance beyond mere intervention in the physical realm.

When Jesus cured the woman suffering from hemorrhage, for example, he did more than restore an individual to physical health. Through his interaction with the woman and the manner in which he healed her, Jesus declared to the community that had cast her out because of her affliction that the reign of God is inclusive of all persons without distinction.

Haitian patients are very similar to this biblical woman. Haitians have been marginalized by the world and suffer in every way possible. If Saint Francis Medical Center (SFMC) in Peoria were helping them, rather than ignoring them, SFMC would reveal that their mission was the same as Jesus. Those that have been excluded would be included. The ministry of Catholic health care facilities is charged to treat the marginalized and those that are bleeding.

The Ethical and Religious Directives seek to proclaim in contemporary terms those attitudes and behaviors that are most consistent with furthering God’s reign of love and justice (e.g., regard for the dignity of the person and the inviolability of innocent human life…)

Should Saint Francis Medical Center remain Catholic?

(From Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services: Seeking Understanding— A Collection of Selected Readings— The Catholic Health Association of the United States)

Should Saint Francis Medical Center Remain Catholic?

Should Saint Francis Medical Center (SFMC) remain Catholic? What distinguishes Saint Francis as a Catholic medical center?

I went to mass yesterday at the OSF chapel on Jan 1. I think the OSF chapel is one of the most beautiful churches in Peoria.

But is SFMC truly acting like a Catholic medical center? Is it following the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services?

OSF is not caring for Haitian Hearts patients and they are dying.

The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services is the current official statement of ethical directives for the provision of health care in Catholic facilities in the United States.

The Directives were approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the USCCB recommended their implementation by diocesan bishops. The Directives were written with the collaboration among the U.S. Catholic bishops, Catholic health care leaders, theologians and ethicists, and the Holy See (the Pope).

The Directives are a set of principles that inform the provision of health services under Catholic sponsorship. They are conclusions drawn from a faith-inspired vision of the human person and the experience gained from providing holistic health care.

We need to remember that the goal of the Directives is to promote consistency between what is done under the auspices of Catholic sponsorship and church teaching on moral matters as these relate to the provision of health services.

Taking care of the poor is emphasized by the Directives. SFMC has rejected Haitian children and young adults that were operated at OSF in the past and now need repeat surgery.

It seems very clear what the Directives would say about caring for Haitian Hearts patients? Would the Directives advise Saint Francis Medical Center to remain a Catholic health care facility?

Wise Men in Soleil

A couple of weeks ago, before Christmas, my father-in-law and I spent some time working in Cite Soleil.

One day we were at a medical clinic/school and witnessed the following scene:

About 50 uniformed kindergarten aged children were at the end of a courtyard and huddled around three other children. One of the three children was a little boy lying motionless on a dirty piece of cardboard. His face appeared quite serious as he stared ahead. He obviously had wet his pants but it sure didn’t seem to bother him.

Kneeling next to him was one boy and one girl.

The teachers were coaxing three little boys as they ambled towards the child on the cardboard.

These Soleil kids were obviously practicing for a Christmas play regarding the Nativity and the wise mens' visit to the newborn Messiah.

Was Jesus birth manger 2000 years ago as horrible as this fetid corner of Soleil?

Most likely none of these children received any toys for Christmas. However, Christmas for these children in Soleil occurs every day when they come to school because they get a big hot metal plate of rice, covered by red bean sauce, meat, and vegetables. This is their only nutritious meal of the day.

Most Soleil children have no Christmas all year long for many reasons. And most children are not in school. Conditions in Soleil should be an aberration and not the rule. All children everywhere deserve to eat every day.

Soleil needs many more wise men (and women) to work out the problems. The best gift for Soleil is justice.

Will OSF Let Katina Die?

Two Haitian Hearts Patients

The last two Haitian Hearts patients for 2007 arrived in the United States for heart surgery two weeks ago.

Pictured above is Jhiny holding her little sister. Pictured below is Christelle in the arms of her father.

OSF, the Media, and the Carroll Family

The media in Peoria make sure that OSF looks good.

The Peoria Journal Star supports OSF and their 500 million dollar Milestone project. This project has been covered extensively in the newspaper. However, much of OSF’s immoral behavior never reaches the pages of the Journal.

OSF does a good job in many areas. But they should. That is the function of a not-for-profit Catholic medical center. However, the Carroll family knows they could and should do much better and we intimately know how OSF works behind the scenes. Most people do not have our perspective, and the people that do know what has happened are shocked.

However, OSF may not want to admit this, but many people speak in hushed voices in disdain of OSF's actions. People are very fearful of the power of OSF...and they should be. They don’t know where to turn. Many know their jobs (and health insurance) are most likely linked in some fashion to pleasing OSF and so they are quiet.

The Ethics Committees at OSF have no real teeth and neither does Bishop Jenky regarding key Catholic OSF policies. This is a problem. The Diocesan Ethics Committee regarding health care will not address OSF's medical negligence of Haitian children.

Respect for life should include Haitian lives. Early in 2007, Haitian Hearts’ Maxime Petion died. He was not accepted back at OSF for medical care even though he had been operated at OSF-SFMC in the 90’s.

OSF continues to deny former Haitian Hearts’ patients medical care. Other medical centers around the United States do not want OSF’s “problems” and are concerned about OSF’s negligence. As OSF ignores their own mission philosophy and the Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives regarding health care, more young Haitians will likely die.

The Carroll family was treated poorly by OSF in multiple ways. Medical care was obstructed and unethical things were said and done to us by the largest downstate medical center in Illinois. Why would OSF have this intense reaction against a small family who only wants honesty, accountability and transparency by the Catholic medical center that states they embody these qualities?

Keith Steffen is responsible for what happens at OSF-SFMC. I am sure he has been scolded by OSF Corporate and other people when he and his robotic staff have gone over the edge, but OSF will allow him to continue his ways until they are done with him. He is carrying out the dirty work for OSF. He knows it as do the Sisters and Catholic Diocese of Peoria.

Even though it is not politically correct in Peoria to scrutinize the Sisters, it is up to them to make sure that their philosophy is practiced and not scandalized. They have surrounded themselves with people that do not have the OSF mission philosophy at heart. As a result, all people that OSF should serve in central Illinois and in Haiti are not being treated in a consistent Catholic fashion.

OSF will change for the better. It probably won’t be soon, but it will happen.

Maxime's Anniversary

One year ago Maxime was fighting for his life.

Maxime now rests over the Illinois River from his vantage point that watches OSF's new 500 million dollar expansion.

The world's best medical technology did not help Maxime. The human heart in Peoria that controls the lives of Maxime and many others simply does not care.

People in the Pictures

A photoessay of Port-au-Prince is in the works on this web log. But will it do any good or is it just some evidence of "what I did on my summer vacation"? Will it help the people that live here? Or is it more of our technology that is "cool" but doesn't enhance the lives of the people trapped in the pictures?

Leaving Soleil

The International Herald reports that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) are leaving Cite Soleil at the end of December.

Because "violence" is down and the need for trauma surgery has decreased, MSF is leaving the one and only functional hospital in Soleil. The hospital is tiny, pathetic Saint Catherine Laboure.

However, structural violence is still at an all time high in Soleil. The children are literally starving to death and their immune systems are rendered impotent. Diseases such as pneumonia and meningitis fill the overcrowed pediatric hospital wards.

Newborn premature babies lie in over-sized metal cribs up stairs. A few of these babies have tiny IV's placed by the excellent Haitian nurses. Antibiotics slowly drip in. No ventilators are present to help the newborns' immature lungs search for oxygen. The babies grandmothers gently coax the babies to take a few drops of powdered milk, and when their tiny grandchildren decide to sleep, the grandmothers lie on the floor under their cribs and sleep too.

Numerous children are abandoned in the hospital. They are too much of a financial burden for their famlies. A doctor visit at Saint Catherine's costs 75 cents and admission to the hospital costs a grand total of a couple of dollars US.

The beautiful baby girl pictured above is one of the abandoned. The nurses plead for help for her. All the mothers in the ward care about this little one, but they have their own problems. All eyes are on the blan...but they shouldn't be.

Saint Catherine's patients need Doctors Without Borders. Saint Catherine's needs very active participation from the State of Haiti and the world needs to know that the population of Soleil should not be treated in this despicable fashion.

The "violence" in Haiti is alive and well at the end of 2007. The war in Soleil continues.

Displaced in Soleil

The young mom's mother-in-law beats her up and throws her in the street of Soleil.

The baby's father has another girlfriend.

This baby girl is swollen from head to toe lacking protein in her diet. She is the picture of kwashiorkor...a displaced child.

The young mother sobs, but the Brazilian Sister stops the tears quickly and gives her hope.

The baby sips fortified milk and quietly joins the malnutrition club in the back of the slum...

Father Jean-Juste

 

South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

Baseless Arrests Continue
December 9, 2007
By Brian Concannon, Jr.


Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste's struggles with Haiti's criminal justice system have been a good gauge of the system's health for the last three years. The latest episode, last month, showed that rule of law is alive in Haiti — if not exactly kicking.

"Fr. Gerry," a Catholic priest well-known as an advocate for South Florida's immigrants and Haiti's poor, has fought charges of murder, treason, weapons possession, disturbing the peace and criminal conspiracy since Haiti's interim government first arrested him in October 2004. No one has produced any evidence of criminal activity, but that has not stopped Haitian authorities from arresting Jean-Juste three times and jailing him for seven months.

Gérard Latortue, who headed the interim government (March 2004-May 2006) that arrested Jean-Juste, has returned home to Boca Raton, replaced by an elected government led by President René Préval. Jean-Juste has been out of prison since January 2006, when he was released provisionally to seek treatment for leukemia at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

But he still faces charges of illegal gun possession — even though there is no proof he ever possessed any weapons — and criminal conspiracy — even though there is no allegation that he conspired with anyone or planned any crime. There are no witnesses against Fr. Gerry.

When Jean-Juste languished in Haiti's prisons, his plight was widely condemned by human rights groups and members of Congress as political persecution by an undemocratic regime. When he was released a week before the long-delayed elections that brought President Préval to power, many saw the promise of the return of the rule of law to Haiti.

That promise has been only partially fulfilled. Last month's hearing of Jean-Juste's challenge to the charges, before the Appeals Court of Port-au-Prince, had many auspicious signs. Jean-Juste and his lawyers made their case freely. Hundreds of supporters turned out without incident. The hearing was orderly. And the prosecutor formally recognized the absence of evidence against Jean-Juste and recommended dismissing all charges.

But the judges declined to dismiss the case, claiming they needed more time to review the file. The Appeals Court has already had 22 months since Jean-Juste filed his appeal, and seven months since a previous appeals hearing in April. That is plenty of time to review almost any file, and more than enough for a file that the prosecutor concedes contains no evidence of wrongdoing.

Jean-Juste has now faced charges under the Préval administration for as long as he did under the Latortue regime. Although Fr. Gerry is not in jail, thousands of other men and women arrested by the interim government are stuck in the democratic government's prisons, including perhaps a hundred or more political dissidents.

Over 90 percent of Haiti's prisoners have never been tried; most were arrested without a warrant and have no evidence against them in their files. Most are poor, and unlike Fr. Gerry, don't have access to lawyers or supporters to come to court for them.

The cases of Fr. Gerry and others arrested by the Latortue regime are not President Préval's fault, but they are now his problem. Although comprehensive reform of Haiti's justice system is complex, dismissing baseless cases is not.

Haiti's government can advance the cause of justice, bring hundreds of people home to their families, and save money in the prison budget by simply reviewing case files and seeking dismissals unless the files show a good, legal reason to continue. Ending Fr. Gerry's battle would be an opportune place to start.

Brian Concannon Jr., Esq. directs the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, www.ijdh.org.
Copyright © 2007, South Florida Sun-Sentinel


Brian Concannon Jr.
Director, Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti
PO Box 745
Joseph, Oregon, 97846
541-432-0597
Brian@IJDH.org
www. HaitiJustice.org
Skype: Brian.Concannon

Disturbing the Peace

 

by Brian Concannon Jr.
December 11, 2007
by CommonDreams.org

Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, a Catholic priest from Haiti, just does not know when to shut up. In the 1970’s he saw his people starved and persecuted while Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier lived in opulence, so he organized for change. The Duvalier regime responded as dictatorships do, and kicked him out of the country. When he reached Miami, Fr. Gerry saw that the safety he found there did not extend to immigrants locked up in detention centers or sent back to face torture or worse in Haiti and countries like it. So he organized there for change. He founded Florida’s Haitian Refugee Center to bring the struggle for justice to the U.S. courts, and coordinated demonstrations to bring the struggle to the streets.

The United States responded as democracies should: it let Fr. Gerry do his work, as long as he did not break the law. He did not win all the battles here that he should have- our laws and our courts are not perfect. But he was at least able to criticize and mobilize without fear of persecution, and sometimes even win.

Bill Quigley, a Catholic law professor from New Orleans, cannot stop helping people organizing for change. He has been a leading advocate for the victims of Katrina since he weathered the storm in a New Orleans hospital where his wife Debbie, a nurse, works, trying to help. The hospital patients did not need a lawyer then, but the families still without homes and the kids still without good schools need one now, so Bill is busy. In 30 years of public interest lawyering, Bill has stood up for a whole spectrum of people fighting for social justice, including peace protestors, death-row inmates and advocates for fair education, healthcare and housing.

Fr. Gerry brought the lessons he learned in the U.S. about non-violent organizing for social change back to Haiti. In early 2004, when the brutal, unconstitutional and U.S.-supported interim regime took over from Haiti’s elected government, Fr. Jean-Juste became the most prominent and respected political dissident. He denounced the killing of political opponents, the political arrests, the looting of public coffers and the tax breaks lavished on the wealthy while the poor starved. People listened, so the regime responded as dictatorships do, and arrested Fr. Gerry on trumped up charges, jailing him for over seven months. The authorities accused him of many things over the next two years- three murders, treason, gun possession, plotting against the state and criminal conspiracy, all without a shred of evidence or a single witness.

There was one charge — made by the police at one of Fr. Gerry’s arrests, but never in court — that might have stuck: disturbing public order. Where public order meant poor kids dying of hunger and young men massacred for living in a politically-active neighborhood, Fr. Gerry disturbed the order. He fed hundreds of children at his church to show that it could be done. He used his pulpit, the radio waves and the streets to denounce the repression, and remind people that there was a better way.

When Professor Quigley found out about Fr. Gerry’s first arrest, he could not help but go down to Haiti to help. Bill appeared in court alongside Fr. Gerry’s Haitian lawyer, Mario Joseph, and stood at Fr. Gerry’s side during particularly dangerous times. Bill was roughed up once trying to shield Fr. Gerry from a crowd before his second arrest, which he recounted in a July 2005 Common Dreams article. But the police and the courts always treated him with respect, always allowed him to do his job.

The American professor’s presence in court and at the police station was a potent reminder of how a government should respond to its critics. The police, prosecutors, judges, lawyers and even the defendant saw Bill as representing a justice system that rejected punishing people for their political opinions, tolerated dissent as long as it was expressed legally, and respected the right of lawyers to assist their clients.

Bill’s presence had a tangible impact. It helped give one judge the courage to release Fr. Gerry provisionally (the judge was forced off the bench the next month; Fr. Gerry was re-arrested eight months later). It helped bolster Attorney Joseph, who managed to obtain another provisional release, which is still in effect, in January 2006.

But despite Bill’s efforts, Fr. Gerry’s legal struggle continued, even after the restoration of democracy to Haiti in 2006. The latest chapter was an appeals court hearing on November 26, to decide Fr. Gerry’s challenge to his indictment. Bill had planned to go to Port-au-Prince for the hearing, but a few days before, he cancelled. He was needed even more in New Orleans, to represent public housing tenants in their struggle against the Bush Administration’s plan to destroy 4,500 units of desperately-needed housing (see HUD Sends New Orleans Bulldozers and $400,000 Apartments for the Holidays, December 3).

In Haiti, Fr. Gerry’s hearing went fairly well. The judges allowed him and his lawyers ample time to make their case, and appeared to be under no inappropriate pressure. Hundreds of Fr. Gerry’s supporters packed the courtroom for the hearing or protested outside, but there were no incidents, and no one was arrested (see My Rosary Is My Only Weapon, Fr. Jean-Juste Goes To Court, Again, San Francisco Bayview, December 5, 2007). The court has not yet issued its decision, but the fact that a politically-charged hearing was held fairly and peacefully was a welcome sign of Haiti’s increasing democratization.

In New Orleans, Bill’s work went less well. He was brutally arrested by a New Orleans deputy sheriff. The arrest was caught on video, which shows Bill quietly standing by as his clients explain why they should be allowed to enter a public New Orleans City Council meeting. Suddenly a deputy grabs Bill from behind, slams him against the wall and roughly handcuffs him. The charge: disturbing the peace. The fact that the lawyer whose protests had been tolerated by Haiti’s dictatorship was brutally arrested for standing outside a hearing room in Louisiana is an unwelcome sign of America’s decreasing democratization.

After the arrest, Bill tried to deflect attention from his experience to the persecution of his clients. He noted that “we live in a system where if you cheer or chant in a city council, you get arrested. But you can demolish 4,500 people’s apartments, and everybody is supposed to go along with that. That’s not going to happen.” He added that “there’s going to be a lot more disturbing the peace before this is all over, I am afraid.”

Although the video footage of Bill’s arrest is disturbing, the meager press coverage of it is even more so. If a nationally-known professor having his head slammed against a wall on film for peacefully helping the victims of the most notorious natural disaster of our times ask their City Council for help defending their homes against a discredited Bush Administration does not generate outrage, what will?

The attack on Bill was clearly designed to intimidate New Orleans’ political dissidents. The attack itself, and the lack of an outcry about it, will encourage more attacks. Even more people will hesitate before standing up to the Bush Administration and its local allies.

But the attack will not stop the New Orleans tenants, or their lawyer. Today, International Human Rights Day, they went before the city’s Historic Conservation District Review Committee, bringing over 100 protestors to the meeting. They won one: the Committee agreed to stop the demolition of one of the three developments. The tenants will keep fighting the other demolitions, and they will keep exercising their Constitutional rights to speak, to cheer and to chant, to disturb a peace that tolerates the destruction of public housing during a housing crisis. Let’s hope that New Orleans can treat its dissidents and their defenders at least as well as Haiti now would.

Human rights lawyer Brian Concannon Jr. directs the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, www.HaitiJustice.org.

Will OSF Let Katina Die?

Haitian Hearts 2007

Revolution of the Heart

"The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?"

Dorothy Day