On November 17, 2018, Dr. Tracee joined our friend and supporter Rita Peterson who sponsored her annual quilt silent auction in conjunction with the Keystone Church Festival of Hope in Seattle, WA. It featured 5 beautiful quilts all made by Mona Hassan, and raised $3,313. Thank You Rita!
US Doctors Arrive for October Medical Campaign trip
Susan Palleschi, Dr. Leslie, Dr. Tracee worked with our Haiti team. Susan and Charles made the trek to Demier for a mobile eye clinic. They fitted patients with readers and glasses for distant vision as needed. They also screened for cataract patients to refer for surgery in January. Leslie and Tracee saw an increased number of children with respiratory infections, along with the usual complaints in the primary care clinic. We helped the midwives care for a pregnant patient having an acute asthma attack. We struggled with the clinic power system and got by with our LUCI lights!
first baby delivered at the clinic (Bien Aime Flaure Marie)
On August 18, 2018 Bien Aime Flaure Marie delivered the first baby in our safe birthing program that began seeing patients in March 2018. Marie Flaure is seen here holding the healthy baby girl.
August 2018 team trip to Haiti
Things in Haiti slow down in the summer. School is out and it’s very, very, hot. Tracee was the USA portion of the team, along with some help from others back home via phone and internet. Jacques, Charles, Tracee, and clinic staff spent time evaluating each program and coming up with ideas for improvement. This is Dr. Jacques first month to devote his full attention to the clinic since graduating from his MBA program, so this review was particularly timely. We continue to give the safe birthing program extra time and support since it is one of our newest programs. This trip we introduced the “Days for Girls” program with the help of Amesville - New England Parish. daysforgirls.org seeks to supply girls with washable hygiene kits, so they don’t miss school while on their period. We also began a program to distribute LUCI lights to school children at the Charles Solomon school in Port-de-Paix. In October we hope to extend the program into Demier.
Charles receiving LUCI lights to take to students, so they will be able to study after dark
Nurse Ruth, and her daughter with a Days for Girls kit.
Nurse Midwife, Marie Fleur with supplies donated by Dr Becky Stilson.
Days for Girls
Dr. Tracee worked with our Haiti team. She introduced a new program, “Days for Girls,” spear headed by Catherine Hare of the Amesville-New England Parish in southern Ohio. The program aims to keep girls active and in school all month long by supplying them with washable hygiene supplies. Volunteers in Ohio stitch the hygiene kits and HAM brings them to Dumay to be distributed to girls at the Centre de Sante de Dumay. As we do every 3 months, Dr. Tracee cared for home bound patients in the Dumay area, by visiting each one with Clerdomy.
First Community Church North Campus Farmers Market
On August 5, 2018, we participated in the First Community Church North Campus farmers market, selling Haitian art we purchase throughout the year from Haitian artists and at artist cooperatives in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Our name “Healing Art Missions” was born when we first traveled to Haiti with suitcases of medicine, filled those suitcases with Haitian art, then sold the art in the USA to raise the funds to purchase more medicine. Literally – “Healing Art”
HAM head surgeon Jacques graduates from an MBA program
In July of 2018, Dr. Jacques, Healing Art Missions Haitian Medical Director successfully completed the MBA program from the _______ . Healing Art Missions funded Dr. Jacques education to help better manage the business of running a full service medical clinic.
A successful collaboration with the Asheville Symphony
On April 14, we had the honor of partnering with Asheville Symphony for the performance, PATRIOTS. We want to give a special thank you to Bill and Nancy Getty's who organized our collaboration with the A.S. We also want to thank our volunteers, Kelly, Warren, and Susie who operated our display booth. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to take the time and learn a bit about Haiti and ways in which we're involved in the community from basic health care to access to clean water and education.
Remembering Tousant
Tousant has been in our home visit program in Dumay since it's inception in 2011.
When we first met him, though he could stand up, he was scooting around his yard on his bottom, planting corn in his yard. There were stalks of corn coming up between the rocks all over his quarter acre yard.
At that time, his house was a humble shelter, leaning heavily to one side and made up of sticks and mud. A few years after we first met up with him, he had a plywood house built by a non-profit that built a few homes in Dumay in response to the earthquake. He lived alone, but all of his neighbors worked together to make sure he had what he needed. We occasionally sent him food and new clothes when he needed them. Most often, he was just really happy to have us visit and bring him vitamins to supplement his diet and Acetaminophen to help him cope with his knee pain. He always said he would pray for us to come back and see him again soon.
The running joke with Tousant was no one knew how old he was, including Tousant. We tried to figure out by asking him to tell us historical stories from his childhood - who was president, any big events. He told us fantastical/mystical stories about things that happened in Haiti when he was a child. I'm sure there was a grain of truth in the stories, but none of our Haitian staff could make sense of them.
After a few months of illness and being cared for by his daughter, Tousant recently passed away and is survived by his daughter and son. We miss his humor, his kindness and his mystical stories of Haiti.
January 2018
HAM started off 2018 with a busy and productive two weeks, January 14th to 28th. Dr. Tracee and Paul spent the first week working with eye technician Charles to continue finding potential cataract surgery candidates and organizing for the arrival of the eye surgery team we were hosting the second week. Dr. Leslie came along for the first week to see patients and assist Dr. Jacques with surgeries. The clinic was also under a bit of construction that week as well, with the addition of new double paned windows and double glass doors so the surgery room was actually isolated from the outside environment for the first time.
Dr. Brian Stahl headed the Go Crazy, Do Good team as they returned to the clinic after their initial trip last January. This time he brought a larger team, including eye surgeon, Dr. Charle Agnone, and six surgical techs and assistants. Ophthalmologist Dr. Joan Nerderman also joined the crew for her first trip to Haiti. Dr. Tracee and Paul met Dr. Joan, who works at OSU’s School of Optometry, in 2017 and invited her to join this mission to help with the pre and post op work. Dr. Brian and his team performed an amazing 98 cataract surgeries in four days to the delight of his patients, many of whom were able to see for the first time in many years.
