It is hot in Haiti. Forty-eight hours is too long to survive under rubble. Thousands of bodies are beginning to decay. The Red Cross isn't there yet. Reports say that the airport is eerily quiet. During all of this lag time at least two medical teams were in place, already suturing wounds, setting bones, and tending to other urgent needs. Doctors Without Borders and Partners in Health maintain an ongoing presence in Haiti. They were there before the earthquake and will be there when everyone else has packed up and gone home.
With the demise of the main hospital in Port au Prince, Partners in Health has become the largest health provider in Haiti. In 2004 a local team of volunteers pulled off a benefit that raised nearly $30,000 for the organization. Tracy Kidder's book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains" tells the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, "The Man Who Would Heal the World."
A Duke grad, Dr. Farmer is changing the face of global medicine with a stubborn belief that health care is a right of all people, regardless of income or nationality. His clinics in the Central Plateau of Haiti have solved problems that experts deemed unsolvable. He is responsible for changes in global protocols for treating MDR (multi drug resistant) tuberculosis that are healing the destitute sick and protecting all of us.
Dr. Farmer maintains ties with Duke, but his life's work is in poor places like Haiti and Rwanda. Since he was a student at Duke, he and Ophelia Dahl have been building an organization that uses innovative models to meet the needs of the poor.
In Cange, where their clinic, Zanmi Lasante, serves the people of the Central Plateau, there are no AIDS orphans because the people with AIDS aren't dying anymore. They're getting the treatment they need to live their lives and raise their children. The area around Cange is fertile (while most of Haiti is barren). People are fed and have clean water because Partners in Health, Farmer and Dahl's organization, recognizes that food and water are essential to health. They've taken their model all over the world ... to Rwanda, Peru, Siberia and even Massachusetts, serving a poor part of Boston.
The PIH model is a lot like what Gawande espouses in his book. "In complex situations, move power to the perimeters." Farmer and Dahl learned that the best way to serve Haiti is with Haitians. They began employing Community Health Workers -- local individuals who visit the sick daily to be sure they are taking their medicine. They trained Haitian medical personnel. Their slogan states, "Partnering with Poor Communities to Combat Disease and Poverty."
On Tuesday evening, as the earthquake hit, PIH people in Haiti were already prepared to help. They packed up two trucks and headed down the mountain to Port au Prince as they simultaneously prepared the clinic in Cange to take the wounded who would surely make their way there. Forty-eight hours later aid is just beginning to arrive in Haiti. PIH has been working for 36 hours ... from the first light after the quake.
PIH is requesting volunteer medical personnel to join their efforts in Haiti. I know two local folks who have signed up to go. PIH need our dollars to keep working. Every organization will be needed to salve the wounds of this immense tragedy, but if you're looking for a way to make an impact, consider Partners in Health. Visit PIH.org to learn more. And if you are medically trained, consider a vacation in Haiti.
Susan Gladin is executive director of the Johnson Intern Program in Chapel Hill. Readers can contact her at sglad1210@aol.com or c/o The Chapel Hill Herald, 2828 Pickett Road, Durham, NC 27705.
