Steevenson Petit-Frere - 7-year-old - Cancer

We lost the fight against cancer for a young boy. Steevenson Petit-Frere, 7-year-old died yesterday at Bernard Mevs Hospital. There is a children's mission hospital here in Port-au-Prince that has a small cancer program. In May we had sent Steevenson and his mother to the children's hospital. The mother told the doctor that a mission sent her. This children's hospital has good care but they don't work well with outside missions. The doctor contacted us and told us that Steevenson would need a cat scan and a biopsy done. They said they couldn't do it for free and I asked them to send a proforma of the fees to us. They wrote the proforma and said it would be $900US for the cat scan and 2,000 US$ for the biopsy surgery. Those are ridiculous rates. A cat scan with contrast at Bernard Mevs Hospital is $200US. We couldn't pay for the fees, and went to Bernard Mevs Hospital seeking help.

Bernard Mevs/Project Medishare Hospital is a private hospital. Project Medishare brings in medical teams from the United States and Canada to work at Bernard Mevs Hospital. Dr. Henry Ford, is a Haitian-American pediatric surgeon and when his team was here a couple weeks ago they did the biopsy procedure for free and Bernard Mevs Hospital did not charge any fees. They returned to the United States with the sample and sent it for analysis. The results were going to be given on Friday but on Monday Steevenson's mother brought him to the house and he was in bad shape. The doctors at Bernard Mevs Hospital admitted Steevenson to the pediatrics room where he died during the evening. We are grateful for the care Bernard Mevs hospital staff provided.

We know that Steevenson is with the Lord and suffers no more but what I don't understand is why missions can't work together to help each other out. I don't really know if the American director of that children's hospital knows what is going on with his administration staff but it is sad. Now I know not to show my white face and make sure to tell the mothers of the children we send to the childrens hospital to never let it be known that a foreigner brought them to their mission hospital. Pray that missions in Haiti could work together in respect and in a network. Pray for Steevenson's mother as she mourns the loss of her son. The following photos are of Steevenson and his mother after his biopsy procedure 2 weeks ago.