“ God will give to each person according to what he has done” Romans 2:6
Hi! This week has been a busy one. My sister Tanya, nephew Matthew, cousin Jeff and his daughter Stephanie arrived on Wednesday. They should have arrived on Tuesday but their plane had to be de-iced in Chicago causing them to miss their connecting flight in Miami. They won’t have to worry about this in Haiti! I kept them busy as soon as they got in the door. The side wall on the property is now repaired and is no longer in danger of falling over. As soon as the barbed wire is along the top it will also be more thief-proof too. The next thing to do is to fix the front wall. It has a slight tilt to it too and may one day fall into the street so we are going to add support to it. The visitors have also been busy helping at the Missionaries of Charity children’s hospice and St. Joseph’s clinic. We made a visit to the Baptist Mission on Saturday and will also be going out to Paulna’s village and Cite Soleil. They also were able to see some of Port-au-Prince while doing medical errands with me.
This past Sunday I visited Iliodor Noel in the emergency department at General Hospital along with Paulna’s mother. We had heard that he had a bad infection in his foot but when we got there it was something much worse. He had been having bad circulatory problems in his foot for the last year and since November it appears that the blood stopped circulating to his foot. As a result gangrene set in. The family did try to go to a couple of different hospitals but were turned away. Finally they went to the state hospital downtown and he was admitted. After a couple of months of gangrene there wasn’t too much left of his foot and the smell was pretty bad too. The sad part is that he was 7 days in the emergency department with no care. When we saw him that Sunday he was complaining to everyone nearby about being ignored by medical staff. I contacted a doctor that I knew and sent him the digital photos of Iliodor’s right foot. By Wednesday this doctor must have contacted doctors at General Hospital because one doctor came into the emergency department and started telling off the other doctors for letting this patient wait this long for medical care. That evening he was operated on and the doctors amputated his leg below the knee. Now Iliodor is recovering. Pray for the healing process and also that he can get a prosthetic leg. With an artificial leg he can return to a normal life in his village again. He has a wife and 3 children so the whole family has been affected by this ordeal.
In our visits to the emergency room we met his “bed neighbors”. The man in the bed next to him also has a bad infection in his leg. He has been begging us to help him too as he also continues to worsen with his infection. On Saturday afternoon when we visited we smelled the gangrene smell again and Tanya was worried that it was Iliodor but it was this other man. Next week we are going to try to get the doctors to treat this man too.
The other “bed neighbor” who was a “bad neighbor” was a young man chained to his bed. There have been problems recently with gangs robbing the downtown area where a lot of depots and merchants are located. One particular gang entered a depot and shot and killed the security guard. The police fortunately arrived quickly and in return started shooting at the gang members. One was killed and the other wounded. This young guy was brought to the hospital and treated for his wound. He had been shot in the chest and had a chest tube inserted. By Saturday he was discharged and sent to prison.
In Haiti it is common for people to abandon children. It is also common for people to abandon the elderly. There has been a frail man lying on the floor of the emergency room for the last week. We saw this man for the first time last Sunday, the first day we visited Iliodor. Someone had abandoned him at the outside entrance of the emergency room. The next day he had been moved inside the emergency room. By Saturday there was another elderly man on the floor beside him that also had been abandoned. I don’t know what causes people to abandon children and the elderly but it needs to change. Pray for Haiti that one day this practice is abandoned.
This week we were able to get passports for Dieune Philippe and John Wilson Charles, who are babies that have hydrocephalus. Next week we will be working on passports for Nephtalie Bazile and Chrisno Jeudi who both have hydrocephalus as well. We are also searching for medical care for Schleudny Nicholas who has a facial tumor. Pray for this search process and God’s comfort for this family.
On Monday a family showed up at the house with their child. I came back later in the afternoon and spoke with them. They had left their mountain village at 1:00am Monday morning to come to our house looking for medical care. I don’t know how they did this walking over mountains in the middle of the night. The girl is 17 months old and looks fat but this fat is not fat at all but kwashiorkor which causes swelling. The mother has a baby at home and this 17-month-old child is suffering. I gave the family some medicine and explained to them that she was suffering a form of malnutrition. They live too far away to check up on so I told the family to come back if the child gets worse. Pray for this family and this young child that she can get the proper nutrition to develop normally.
People are complaining about the costs of food and increasing inflation. The delegates in the Haitian parliament want the government to be more accountable for rising costs. Some organizations are threatening to start protests to force the government to take more action.
Kidnapping has also been increasing, particularly of children. A 6-month-old baby was kidnapped and the parents paid the ransom. Later the baby was found dead. Police have arrested several people associated with this kidnapping including a “hougan” (voodoo priest). They say that sorcery was also involved. The other day a large protest was held in Archaie against this act and other acts of kidnapping.
In Cite Soleil last week a mob in that community stoned a suspected kidnapper to death. This man was blamed for kidnappings in Petionville and the community took justice into their own hands.
That’s all the news for today. Have a good week!
Karen Bultje
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