Improving Health Conditions By Peter J. Dirr Besides
treating about 25,000 patients and facilitating 500 births each year, the staff of St. Joseph Clinic has been working to improve
health conditions in the Thomassique region and deal with some of the underlying causes of illness. In
2011, we have made significant progress in some areas; 2012 will see even greater strides. Contaminated
WaterAlmost all of the sources of water in the Thomassique area are contaminated.
Many of the illnesses we see at St. Joseph Clinic can be traced back to contaminated water. We
began to address that problem in 2009. With assistance from the Gerard Health Foundation, we have now distributed
more than 6,000 home-based water purification systems, benefiting more than 40,000 residents. Our goal
is to reach 12,000 to 15,000 households by the end of 2013. Nutrition The very young and the very old are susceptible to malnutrition. At the Clinic, we see about 20 severely
malnourished children each month. We have partnered with Meds and Food for Kids, an organization founded
by medical professionals affiliated with the Washington University in St. Louis, to provide nutritional supplements to those
children. After a two-month treatment, most of the children are restored to complete health.
We
have also partnered with Feed My Starving Children, an organization based in Minneapolis, MN, to provide a hot lunch to about
2,000 students in ten schools every school day. For many of these students, that is the only full meal
they have each day. We have also partnered with the University of Notre Dame Haiti Program to address
two illnesses that can be remedied by a small change in food habits. Lymphatic filariasis (also called
elephantiasis) and delayed brain development in children can be eliminated by using a fortified salt product developed by
the Notre Dame program. St. Joseph Clinic has arranged for salt vendors in the town of Thomassique and
in its outlying villages to distribute “Bon Sel.” Our hope is to eradicate these two health
problems over the next five to six years. Assisted Births It is estimated that only one of four women who give birth in Haiti has assistance from a trained health worker (doctor, nurse,
or midwife). Our goal is to increase not only the number of women who have assistance during pregnancy
and delivery but also to improve the quality of care they and their infants receive.
To
this end, Medical Missionaries has joined forces with many organizations and is about to launch an improved maternal and infant
care program. With support from Bon Secours Hospital Foundation, the JadeTree Foundation, and All Saints
church, we will be adding two midwives to the staff of St. Joseph Clinic. The expanded staff will be providing women in the
town of Thomassique and the outlying villages increased prenatal education and services. They will follow
the women through birth and assure that their infants receive all appropriate vaccinations. Working
with the Ministry of Health and the World Food Program, we will be providing women and infants with the vitamins and any food
supplements they might need for a healthy start in life. Part of the program’s activities will be
to provide additional training to some of the traditional midwives who often work in the villages. There
are many other health-related needs in the area that continue to lower the quality of life for the residents (e.g., poor housing
and sanitation). These challenges will have to be addressed at some point, but for the present we must
focus our resources and our efforts on those problems that affect health most directly and are of a scope that we can manage. | 
