DAY 2

We are staying at Delmas 75, which is about 20 minutes drive from down town Port-Au-Prince. We went to one of the nearby tent cities named “Gedeon” where 225 families, with approximately 900 people in total, live. We set up in a tent that is used for the Sunday service and boy was it HOT… Before we finished setting up, everyone was drenched in sweat; I couldn’t image how these people live under these conditions every single day.

Most people here have really bad teeth and most of them have never seen a dentist or owned a toothbrush, or even know what dental floss is. A number of patients also came with LARGE dental abscesses and we were able to provide them with injectable antibiotic and pills to follow up later in the week. A lot of them have periodontal disease as a result of poor hygiene and malnutrition. The dental work was very challenging because we do not have enough supplies and instruments, especially X-ray facilities. Despite all the challenges, God is faithful and skillfully guiding the hands of the dentist. This was field dentistry at its BEST. The dental chair was replaced by a rickety chair; the light source was a flashlight being held by the “dental assistants” and the ventilation was provided by one of our volunteers, a boy fanning manually. Sterilization was done by 6 containers with water/soap/isopropyl alcohol/chlorox/cavicide (chemical solution) and the autoclave was a pressure cooker. We saw about 20 dental patients today.

On the medical side, the doctor was given a king size chair and he felt like King Solomon. We saw approximately 80 people (adults and children). Most of the children presented with fever, vomiting, diarrhea, worm infestation and skin rashes. The adults presented with mostly gastrointestinal, respiratory and GYN issues. Providing a private examining area was extremely challenging and essentially consisted of team members and volunteers creating a human shield around the patient. We were fortunate to have a nursing student from Canada who was able to work alongside us and also trained our banker, Paul, to become a pharmacist. Oh and our photographer Brad made us feel like movie stars with his camera flashing everywhere.

At the end of the day we were all exhausted but certainly accomplished a lot. The team worked extremely well together from the get-go even though most of us only met each for the first time on this trip. Only God can make this happen.