Dear Ones, beloved of the Lord,

It has been a long time since I have written to you. I try not to bother you with many emails, and only write when I have new stories to tell you. However, one of the many jobs I had to do today, was to write out the answers to a company called Vita Health. Vita Health has very generously, through Health Partners International Canada, donated to us large quantities of acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and vitamins. We were sent a list of questions, and asked for some feed back.

While I was correcting all my typos, I was thinking that you might be interested to hear some of these things. It is not anything new – just the day to day work that goes on every day, here working alongside our dear Father, in Haiti. My answers are the ones in purple.

What are the main conditions treated with the medicines and/or supplements mentioned above? 

Follow up:

We work in the poorest province of Haiti, the Northwest Department. I remember years ago, during one of my first visits to the mission, one of the missionaries was sitting holding a child of eight or nine years, who was eating a piece of bread. The child was wearing her school clothes, and had obviously returned from school. She ate the bread extremely slowly, almost like she was lost in thought. I sat down beside the missionary, Miss Pat, and asked her about the child. Miss Pat said the little girl had not eaten yet today. She said that it wasn’t her turn to eat at home for a couple more days and she was very hungry, so she came to see Miss Pat.

At first, I really did not believe stories like this. The children play in the streets like everywhere else – some naked, most without shoes. They shout, they tease, and they beg. I had no idea that they really did not eat every day, not even children from good families.

We cannot feed everybody. But, when they come to school, or come to see the doctor, we can give them vitamins. This is especially important for growing children. The children who receive these multivitamins do better in school, have better long term memory, and are less likely to succumb to broken bones, falling hair, poor eye-sight, and infections than children who do not receive them.

We are extremely thankful to Vita Health for all the wonderful products they have sent to our children and our elderly people.

Because of the extreme poverty, many elderly people, when they are no longer able to work for themselves, save all their food for their grandchildren, trying to keep a younger generation alive. They are the last to eat in any family environment, because they give everything to feed the young. Many simply starve to death. We have great joy to be able to give our elderly vitamins. They, especially appreciate the anti-inflammatories.

There is no infrastructure where we work. The roads are all rock and mud, in mountainous terrain. Even inside the homes, there are mostly rocky dirt floors. We send many used Canadian wheelchairs for the elderly, but getting around is almost impossible for them. I have seen many elderly patients almost cry with relief when they were given a bottle of acetaminophen. It is precious to them. Acetaminophen, above all the other analgesic/anti-inflammatory preparations, does not seem to bother their empty stomachs as much.

No one in Canada can imagine what it is like to live with aching knees, headaches, or toothache, without an acetaminophen. And yet, this is the case for most of the people we reach. A woman who owns a tiny bottle of acetaminophen is like an angel of mercy in her community, and welcome where ever she goes.

Is there one particular patient who comes to mind that benefited from these medicines and/or supplements? (Please tell us about the patient’s background, age, illness/complaint, the impact treatment had on them)

One lady named Rosy was in her mid 50’s. She had worked in the Bahamas in her young adulthood, and knew English language very well. She came to help interpret for me during a medical trip. Rosy was gentle with the sick, especially the elderly. She explained to me that as people age, their untreated injuries become more and more painful. Arthritis is never eased by a soft bed, for most sleep on the dirt floor, and mountain roads only add to the exertion of life. Hunger adds a constant aggravator to their rest.

Rosy always requested as part of her pay, a large bottle of Acetaminophen to take back up into the mountains with her. She said that her bottle of analgesic gave her the freedom to enter many homes, and discuss appropriate first aid procedures, the use of clean water, how to boil bandages, and simple, practical first aid. Because suffering was relieved by her acetaminophen, people would listen to her about community health issues.

How do these medicines and/or supplements impact the clinic overall?

It is a real relief to us, when holding a screaming, sick child in a bucket of water to cool it’s high fever, to know that before long the acetaminophen will begin to help restore normal temperatures.

We believe that the people who receive nutritional supplements will heal from their illnesses with less lasting injury. We also believe that by raising the overall health of the individuals in the community, that death by epidemiological causes is reduced. After all, we work in communities where diseases like typhoid, malaria, and cholera are common. In every outbreak, it is the weakest who spread the diseases the farthest, and die the soonest. We are attempting to increase health, not just care for the dying.

How do these donations contribute to the sustainable aspect of the clinic?

Instances like Rosy above, do much to increase our welcome in communities.

People here at home do not understand how primitive first-aid is in the developing world. In our area, voodoo practitioners make up powders to treat most illnesses. They exhume dead bodies of humans and animals, and use the desiccated organs to make powders which are often mixed with urine, filthy water, and plant juices, to make ‘medicine’. When people seek medical assistance from us, it is often perceived as being a great risk to their acceptance in their communities, and to their ‘culture’.

We need inroads to teach community health and first aid to communities whose culture would normally reject such practices. “We have always done it THIS way,” is a common objection.

The amazing speed with which acetaminophen lowers fever, or eases pain in the joints or head, is of tremendous benefit to our being accepted.

Over the last year, we have been working on the island of Tortuga. There are 45,000 people on this island with only one medical intern and two nurses. In the clinics of these three medical professionals, we have been unable to find even one bottle of acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or vitamins over the last year. We are received by them with great joy, when we come to them bringing such simple staples.

Is there any message you would like to send to the company that provided these medicines and supplements?

By way of product feed-back and update, I need to tell you that while ‘gummy’ vitamins are much loved treats, they do not benefit consistent health care in the tropical heat of Haiti. It is very common to find entire cases of paediatric gummy vitamins which have melted into one large sticky glob in the bottom of the bottle. In the villages, the men use a large machete to split the bottles open, and the children sit chewing on the sweet, gummy, candy with great delight. And while the children love it, it does not help them get daily, appropriate doses of their vitamins. We no longer accept gummy vitamins. Other less heat-sensitive vitamins will be of greater benefit.)

We are committed to taking the love of God to a people who are isolated from the outside world. They hear occasional news reports of how international aid is helping people in the big cities. By radio, they hear much political talk. But, when they are ill, or their elderly mother is slowly starving to death, or they cannot keep their children healthy, they know they are alone.

By taking ordinary Canadians to go sit with them, encourage them, show them that God loves them, and we care if they are healthy – we are doing something important for them.

We are also impacting the lives of the Canadians who go to do this important work to be better citizens, at home and abroad. I believe we are also giving Canada the reputation, out in the remote villages, mountains, and islands of Haiti, as being a people who care.

Most of all, I believe we are helping the helpless to come to know that God really does care about them. He will not leave them in their helplessness or their suffering. He sent them you, and with your products, us. I know that you cannot go. But you have. You have touched these lives, because you have helped us to go.

God bless you. Thank you so very much for being part of what God is doing! Every day we give thanks to our Father for you, because you are part of this. In His great love, Tina