Beth's January 2015 Haiti Trip - Day 6

Haiti Trip Day 6 - January 28th 2015

We had a good day here.  We left bright and early for the super rough, nauseating 26 mile (2 hours) drive to Boc Banic near the DR boarder.  Above is a picture of the church where we held the clinic.  The mobile clinic on Monday had over 100 women show up!  They travel remote roads to reach 16 different sites monthly to provide care and education.  These women walk hours to get to these monthly clinics. It is the only care available to to them.  The closest hospital is the one here in Hinche,  2 hours away.  They then patiently wait hours in the heat to be seen.  We saw 40 women today and about half of them it was their first visit.   They ranged from 10 weeks to 41 weeks and barely any of them had any idea of their due date or even a due month. It really does test my assessment skills!  We even had one lady who was 30 weeks with a blood pressure of 190/120 and +3 protein in her urine.  But it looks like she has had the same issues even earlier in her pregnancy, so more likely she has chronic high blood pressure resulting in some kidney damage so not likely pre-eclampsia.  We made the hard decision to leave her there with blood pressure medication and hope she is okay until next month when we could transport her back here to deliver.  If we had brought her back today the Haitian OB would have induced her and her baby would not have survived. 

Dr. Steve MFH's medical director was along with us today, so we had the luxury of being able to do basic ultrasounds with the hand held sono unit on a couple of women.  

 This is a home that was next to the clinic site. And some of the kids and goats that were hanging around and keeping an eye on us throughout the day. 

  

This is a very nice medical building that is sitting empty.  We were there scouting out options for a future birth center in this town.  But this place does not have running water or electricity so those would be huge expenses/barriers to making it work.  It is so sad to see so many buildings like this and many nice school buildings sitting unused.  Organizations come in and have grand ideas and build these structures, but don't make any plans on how to sustain them.  If they don't budget for staff or teachers then they simply sit empty and go to waste.  

It was great to get to pass out a Days For Girls pack to everyone we saw today.  It is a huge issue that girls/women miss up to a week of school/work each month due no way to conceal their cycle.  These handmade  packs give them so much freedom! It is exciting that something we take for granted can change these girls lives!  

Days for Girls International | Sustainable Feminine Hygiene www.daysforgirls.org