Impressions of a Father-Son Medical Mission to Haiti: The Father

Decades ago my father, an academic immunologist and rheumatologist, once spoke about the possibility of a family sabbatical to Africa for medical mission work. Regrettably, that trip never occurred, but the thought of a mission trip with my own family resonated in my mind. What a singular experience I had missed with my now deceased father. When I first heard Bill White, MD, a Kansas City oculoplastic surgeon, speak about his mission trips to Haiti^1,2 and call for medical professionals to join him I was ready to go. However, it would take me, an accomplished procrastinator, another 13 years to finally pack my bags.

Dr. White, the 2018 the American Academy of Ophthalmology Humanitarian Award recipient, has traveled to Haiti for over twenty years. He and others have helped establish an ongoing ophthalmologic clinic and surgery service at the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission in Saint-Louis-du-Nord (“the mission”) on the northwest coast of Haiti.³ His efforts along with Andy Moyes, MD, Abe White, MD, and others have turned the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission into one of the most dynamic and important health care resources in all of Haiti. A point of focus creating selfsustaining, year-round medical care.

The mission is one of the largest employers in the Northwest zone and serves the community of Saint-Louis-du- Nord in many ways. First established as a church and place of prayer, the mission now has a school, orphanage, a home for disabled children, an elder care facility, a full time general medical clinic, and one of the busiest birthing centers in Haiti. In fall and spring each year, for a total of ten weeks, two fully equipped operating rooms are staffed with surgeons, nurses, medical personnel and volunteers from all over the United States. They perform neurosurgery, general surgery, orthopedics, and ophthalmologic surgery (Figure 1).

The challenges of missionary work, visiting underdeveloped countries and providing on-going care are daunting. Travel to areas where typhoid, rabies, cholera, hepatitis, and malaria are prevalent requires extensive pre-planning for vaccinations and prophylactic medications. These endeavors involve risk to visiting medical professionals. Mental preparation is essential. Haiti has extreme economic and ecologic challenges and is still recovering from the 2010 earthquake that killed approximately 300,000. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew caused additional widespread devastation. More recently an earthquake on October 6, 2018, interrupted an eye team’s trip.

I was privileged to travel with my oldest son Henry to the mission in October 2017 with a group of surgeons, and volunteers from all over the United States. Henry, age 13 at the time, shares his impressions of the trip in the accompanying article.

Flying from the U.S. to Haiti involves a flight into the capital, Port-au-Prince. Haiti is on the island of Hispaniola and less than 700 miles from Florida. It is surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and bordered to the east by the Dominican Republic. Port-au-Prince sits on a magnificent natural harbor where the Grise River enters the Gulf of Gonave. Verdant hills and mountains stretch beyond into the Dominican Republic. Henry and I had read some of the complicated, heart wrenching history of Haiti: Columbus’s initial landing in 1492 on the north coast, the decimation of the indigenous Taino tribe, colonialism, slavery, Haiti’s successful slave revolt, and the ongoing ecologic and economic battles that continue to challenge. Roughly 20% of all Haitians live in Port-au-Prince. Regrettably, Haiti still is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Our research did not prepare us for the poverty, population density, and cacophony of Port-au-Prince.

The Haitian Mission Hospital is always crowded with patients as it is the main medical facility in northwest Haiti.

We flew north early the next morning, disconcertedly low over mountains to the coastal town of Port-de-Paix. The rudimentary, dirt airstrip functions as a road, a grazing area for scrawny pigs and goats, a community gathering center, and on one end as a garbage dump. Climbing into the back of another pickup, we bumped, banged and swerved for eight miles to the small town of Saint-Louis-du-Nord and the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission.

The mission truly functions as a spiritual and medical oasis in one of the poorest areas of the world. The starkly clean, walled and gated compound sits on five acres. It has its own generator, fresh water well, and dormitories. An incipient fish farm and plantain trees may soon offer food self-sufficiency. As a parent, I was pleased that Henry was holding up well.

After a brief orientation, Henry and I went to work screening patients and getting them ready for surgery. Henry helped screen hundreds of patients during the week’s stay. Additionally, he helped in the operating rooms and interacted with the children in the orphanage and disabled center. I and other ophthalmic surgeons did complicated cataract, glaucoma, pterygium, pediatric, and retinal surgeries. Overall, our group did about 800 visual screenings and 150 major surgeries in the eye clinic-hospital. We also found time for group meals, prayer, singing, and outreach to the local jail and poorest sections of town. It was incredibly rewarding to help a community and people that, enthusiastically and appreciatively, value the mission’s good works.

A criticism of medical missions is that the care is episodic and lacking in follow-up. Not so at the mission! An essential goal of the American medical teams visiting the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission is to train and equip a year-round residential medical staff. Ideally, medical missionaries work toward their obsolescence; toward a point where local physicians and staff are able to provide all clinical and surgical services. This laudable effort continues in Saint-Louis-du-Nord and every year shows incremental improvement. Local optometrists and physicians are more involved in care giving. Children from the orphanage leave and go to university. Some plan to return to the mission to work. Dr. White and his wife financed the education of a local boy who has returned to Haiti to practice.

At the conclusion of our trip, Henry and I had closer bonds of shared hardships and the mutual satisfaction of helping some of the poorest people on the planet become healthier and more self-sufficient.

Any physician or volunteer is welcome to participate and may contact the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission office in Indiana to get information, www.nwhcm.org, (317) 228–8770.