Living in His Grace: Cholera House

7/20/11

Today, we went to visit Real Hope For Haiti. They've been around in Haiti for 17 years, and is in the mountain region, in the village Cazale, Haiti.

They've been around during multiple hurricanes, the earthquake, and now Cholera. They are open for clinical assistance, dressing treatment, and Rescue Center for Malnourished children, but lately it's been on what one of the

founders call "survival mode" since the Cholera Epidemic. They explained that when they started seeing Cholera patients they needed to separate them from the rest of the patients, and away from the water supply. A Haitian was building a house on top of a hill, and told RHFH that they could use their unfinished home, since they were not ready to move in yet. I don't think they were prepared for it to be this long. Haiti has never had to deal with Cholera before. They later found out that the water supply was already contaminated by...well, let's just use initials for identity protection ...UN. Guess the identity protection didn't work. They'll deny it anyways.

Anyways, half of our team stayed at the RHFH building and helped separate supplies, the other half went to the Cholera House to help out. It was a dirty job, but we did it wholeheartedly and for Christ. I went to the Cholera House with the 2nd half of the team, but no nursing duties for me there. I would've loved to help, but they had a system down to a science! This house has no running water, no electricity, full to more than capacity, and yet they've seen 3000 patients and only 6 deaths since the outbreak. These Haitian Nurses and volunteers are awesome and very resourceful. I've been in my sheltered hospital setting, and complained about not having certain supplies. NEVER AGAIN will I complain!

Before we left the house, we had our soles of our shoes cleaned with bleach, washed our hands with soap and water, and then sprayed from head to toe with a bleach mist.

Of course, after we got back to the Guest House, and I took a REALLY GOOD shower, one of our team members got a splinter in his finger, and then another cut herself (too silly of an accident to explain), and I had to care for the cut while someone else took care of the splinter.

The pictures below are for the RHFH clinic. No pics from the Cholera House.

The girls pulling apart Paper Towels for the Clinics and the Cholera House.