Lo Torre Clinic

The Lo Torre Clinic on La Gonave, Haiti

The Community of Lo Torre

Lo Torre is situated on the southernmost crest of La Gonave Island at altitude of ~2000 feet. As the crow flies it is actually closer to Point a Raquette than Anse a Galet.  Lo Torre consists of approximately 11 neighborhoods all with limited access to water, healthcare or medication. There is a local community health worker (CHW), Yvenia Saint Cyr who is funded through the La Gonave Haiti Partnership (LGHP) at Bill Rice Clinic. There is no electricity or system of sanitation. The character of the area is very rural. There are minimal opportunities for employment; most income is earned through farming and local commerce. It is a 2+ hour drive west, then south from Anse a Galet.

History of the Partnership and Clinics

The St. Francis church of La Gonave has partnered with All Saints Anglican church of Pawleys Island SC for 20 years to establish and maintain St Barnabus church and primary school in LoTorre. The clinic for LoTorre evolved as an outreach of this partnership. Every four months a multidisciplinary team coordinated through All Saints travels to the community and sets up a 3 day clinic in the school’s classrooms.  A fully staffed clinic will treat approximately 700 patients on a trip. A Haitian physician and nurse from the Bill Rice clinic travel up with the American team. The local CHW as well as other young adults from the community are employed during the clinic days to assist with patient care including lab testing, equipment management, registration, translation and cooking. Over time the clinic effort has developed into a truly Haitian/American team.

Each clinic trip provides a pediatric clinic, a dental clinic and an adult clinic. Because there is no access to over the counter or prescription medications the American team purchases all medication in the US, packages them in per-patient bags with instructions in Kreyol. Patients register with the church lay minister and pay for care on a sliding scale. Medications are provided free of charge. All supplies, including food, water, gasoline, sleeping bags, dental chairs, etc. are packed and transported up the mountain in the aging “ambulance” and supply trucks. It is a physically demanding effort for everyone.

Patient Care

The dental clinic is coordinated by Dr. David Grabeman of Pawleys Island SC.  He is assisted by 3 members of the Lo Torre community who provide cold sterilization of equipment and manage patient flow. When a second dentist travels, the clinic is able to run 4 chairs at a time. Care is limited to extractions and management of abscesses, fluoride treatment and teaching. Patients are treated with local topical and injected anesthetic and provided with antibiotics and pain medication to take home as needed. American volunteers assist by preparing trays and equipment for the dentists and comforting patients.

 

The pediatric clinic is coordinated by Dr. Amanda Drosieko of Pawleys Island SC. She is assisted by a translator and an American nurse or other volunteer. The clinic provides episodic care, as well as treatment for malnutrition, parasites and chronic conditions such as asthma and anemia.  Mothers are provided with medication for fever, pain and vitamins if needed. Children receive immunizations through a clinic coordinated by WorldVision and nutrition assessment through the Medikamamba program.

The adult clinic is coordinated by Dr. William Fairey of Pawleys island SC. It is the highest volume clinic and sees 300-500 patients per trip. Patients are registered by Haitian staff and vital signs are obtained by the Bill Rice Clinic nurse and the CHW, Ms. St. Cyr. Patients are seen by American and Haitian doctors, American nurse practitioners and registered nurses from both the US and Bill Rice clinic. Basic finger stick glucose and hemoglobin testing is provided by Lo Torre employees. All patient meds and diagnoses are entered into a database stateside to provide information for inventory, follow up and efficacy of the efforts.

Veterinary Clinic

Once a year a Haitian/American veterinary team is provided to the community which augments the day to day care for livestock provided by the LGH Partnership through Jean Thoney. Veterinarians and technicians provide immunization, deworming, castration and emergency care at the St Barnabus school and out in other gathering areas of the community.  There is always a great deal of excitement and energy when the vet team is visiting. The school’s “parking lot” is filled with donkeys, pigs and goats to awaken us each morning.

Long Term Goals

The team has formed a 501(C)3 called “Logos LaGonave” in order  to channel funds raised in a transparent manner. We hope to purchase land and construct a permanent clinic in the Lo Torre community. The excellent reputation of the Bill Rice Clinic in Nouvelle Cite inspired us to dream of a clinic staffed with Haitian doctors, nurses, agents and technicians to meet the day to day health needs of the community. We envision augmenting care with American specialty medical teams until the Haitian medical system can one day supply adequate specialists of their own. Our novel system of mapping patient houses using GIS and house addresses has enabled us to develop not only an adult patient medical database, but the beginnings of a community census that allows visualization of population density by neighborhood, using a GoogleEarth overlay; this will aid us and other groups in choosing advantageous sites for clinic buildings and water systems. We hope to add pediatric and dental patient information to our database in the coming year.  This will allow us to follow the health of the community across the lifespan.

Needs

• Financial Donors- to purchase medications for each clinic (approximately $ 7500 per trip for meds and baggage charges), to assist patients who are referred to hospitals for care, to assist the LGH Partnership in purchasing/maintaining transportation for teams and supplies, to build a permanent clinic.
• Health Care Providers- especially optometrists, ophthalmologists,  family practice/emergency physicians and nurse practitioners, dentists, pediatric physicians and nurse practitioners,OB/GYN physicians and nurse practitioners, farm animal veterinarians.

For more information please contact team member Leslie Jordanger : jordangers@gmail.com

 

Bill Rice Clinic

More than twenty years ago a group of Presbyterians from the Atlanta area were on mainland Haiti to teach classes in public health. They met a young priest and his wife from La Gonave, a remote island out in the bay. They were looking for someone to partner with them to bring healthcare to the people of this isolated and under served area.

The group took the time to go out into the bay and visit La Gonave. Under a tree in the church yard they decided to form a partnership and work on the problem at hand. More than anything the people wanted medical services for themselves and their children.

The La Gonave Haiti Partnership began that day. Bill Rice, from First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta and Glennis Johnson from Global Health Action took on the task of getting healthcare for La Gonave and agreed to join the other US Episcopal churches already working on La Gonave.

Bill Rice, a retired Presbyterian missionary, returned to Atlanta and began a relationship with the local priest and  the Bishop of the Diocese of Haiti to build a clinic. It would be up in the mountains, in a central location, to best serve the people. Over the next few years plans were drawn, monies raised and building materials were shipped to La Gonave by way of large sailboats. It was a huge undertaking, but it was clear that the dream would become a reality. It would be a clinic for the “poorest of the poor.”

After three years of work, just before the dedication was to take place, Bill Rice became ill and died. In yet another strange twist of fate, the Bishop, who had become a dear friend and partner over the years, also died. At the time of the dedication a huge crowd gathered. Partners from the U.S., dignitaries from the Diocese of Haiti, all there to celebrate this great accomplishment.

After a dedication sermon by the son of Bill Rice, himself a minister, the Haitian partners unveiled a sign to be hung on the clinic. It was to become the Bill Rice Clinic in honor of the man who had the vision and courage to help make it happen.

Today the Bill Rice Clinic stands as a sign of hope and health to the island of La Gonave. It is staffed by Haitian doctors, nurses, lab techs, pharmacists and other clinical staff. It is the home of the Community Health Care workers, who serve the surrounding communities, as well as housing the Childrens’ Nutrition Program. It is the site of pre-natal instruction, family nutrition and family planning.

While the clinic is kept open during the year by the clinical staff, it is also the site of medical mission teams that come in from the U.S. to see patients with special needs such as OB/GYN, cardiac and orthopedic issues.

Often patients walk for more than two hours to get to Nouvelle Cite where the clinic is located. They wait on benches for the better part of the day waiting their turn to be seen. It is not a free clinic. Patients pay a small fee to be seen as well as a fee for prescriptions. It is important that they feel a sense of dignity and participation in their own care.  But, that does not begin to meet the costs of running this important clinic.

The costs of medications alone can be in excess of $25,000 a year. Critical medications that treat malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and malnutrition.

There is a Haitian proverb, “Men anpil chay pa lou.”  Many hands make the load lighter.

Please help us lighten the load of this important program. Healthcare is the cornerstone to productivity.

 

Children’s Nutrition

One trip to Haiti and the images of the smiling, friendly children are with you forever. In Haiti, 42% of the population is under the age of 14. Of those, 42% of children under the age of 5 years are malnourished. Nearly 8% of the babies born never make it to age 5. These are grim statistics. They are the reason we feel so strongly about the Childrens’ Nutrition Program.

For the last 20 years the program has been providing Achamel, a mixture of beans and rice fortified with protein supplements to malnourished children. It has been a mainstay in fighting malnutrition, but in March of this year we received a grant from Meds and Foods for Kids, located in Cap Haitian, to train our clinical staff to distribute Medika Mamba.  http://mfkhaiti.org/

This amazing new product, made in Haiti by Haitians using peanuts from local farmers, has revolutionized the treatment of severely malnourished children. Given in an 8 week course, this peanut butter based paste can restore a child to normal body weight and good health. The cost of this treatment per child is $65. A small cost for good health and a better chance at life.

Mothers, who often have to leave young children to go to the well or to work at the market are able to leave their children at home with family members knowing that they will be fed nutritious meals. Often this work can take them away from home for 4- 6 hours of the day. Walking long distances over unpaved roads.

With Medika Mamba, a ready to use therapeutic food (RUTF), there is no need to build a fire to feed a child. It comes in a foil packet and is stable up to 18 months.

With this program, families receive instruction in better family nutrition, family planning and other public health concerns. Please help us as we work to make the children of La Gonave healthy, happy and ready to learn.