In our recent February Newsletter we wrote about Healing Art Missions’ (HAM) new Pilot Project to provide much needed ongoing access to surgical care in the area most affected by last August’s earthquake, the Nippes Department. In advancing this program, which is providing orthopedic and general surgical teams to Sainte Therese Hospital in the city of Miragoane twice a month, Dr. Jacques, HAM’s medical director, has engaged two organizations as partners.
Hernia Help – Hernia Repair for the Underserved (HH), is a group that HAM has worked with for several years, as Dr. Jacques is a hernia repair specialist who has run many trainings and workshops with the group. In late February, St. Boniface Hospital (SBH) in Fond des Blancs, reached out to HH looking for a hernia specialist to perform very complicated surgeries of which the resident surgeons were not sufficiently trained to perform. St. Boniface Hospital, operated by Health Equity International, is a major private hospital located remotely in the Sud Department, south of Nippes Department, which is, as they state on their web page, “dedicated to providing essential health services to the people of southern Haiti, especially the most vulnerable.” In coordination with HH, Dr. Jacques flew to SBH in March to operate on patients suffering from abdominal eventration on six patients and to train the local surgeons on site. While there, Dr. Jacques spoke with the hospital management about HAM’s pilot program to provide surgeons to Sainte Therese Hospital in Nippes, a hospital lacking a well-trained nurse anesthetist. An agreement was reached whereby SBH would receive a nurse anesthetist from Sainte Therese Hospital for continued training in local sedation, and spinal anesthesia. Having a well-trained and effective nurse anesthetist in residency at Sainte Therese Hospital will greatly increase the productivity and efficiency of the surgeons sent to Nippes in HAM’s pilot Program.
We thank HH for their ongoing partnership with HAM, and welcome our newest partner, SBH. HAM strongly believes that such partnerships expand the reach and abilities of the individual organizations, providing a network of knowledge, experience, resources and support.