These are awful days in Haiti.
Yesterday I went to get seizure medications for the children and youths who live in the Kay Christine home. To see the external clinic in our hospital empty was awful because it is usually jam packed with mothers and kids. The epilepsy clinic was empty. Usually on Thursdays the doctor struggles to get to see all the kids, but she herself could not come. The night before she hardly made it home through the burning barricades.
The NPH St. Damien Pediatric Hospital did not have the seizure medications we needed because the suppliers could not bring them. My heart breaks for the mothers of those kids with seizures. Most are part of our NPH rehab program and without medications they will be seizing all the time. I went to a pharmacy in town and luckily got the most important one. The other one they had just one small bottle, so while I took it, I cried inside for the mothers that will risk their lives to go there and go home empty handed. How will they manage with their kids?
Today it seems that the whole country is on fire and for sure the whole country is locked down with burning barricades. Even up here in the hills the roads are blocked and staff coming on foot are being hassled on their way to work.
People cannot take any more. They are out in numbers and will not stop until the president resigns. Will he resign? Who knows. On Wednesday he gave an address to the nation-at 2am!!! Needless to say it was not well received!
On Tuesday Fr. Rick Frechette was burying the abandoned dead from our hospitals. He and his team were attacked and they were lucky to get away with their lives. His big truck was burned by bandits.
Difficult times ask everyone to dig deep and keep hopeful. We are always a people of hope, as Sister Lorraine used to say. We are an Easter Sunday people!
Our staff inspire us. We can’t even pay them a decent salary and yet they give everything they can to get to work. They are brave and courageous and responsible and I wish to goodness they could be put on top of a big pedestal and applauded by one and all. We will keep hopeful. Things will get better. They have to!
Gena Heraty
Director of Special Needs Programs at NPH Haiti
