Haitian nurses will take lessons home

Local nurses shared their knowledge with visiting nurses from Haiti.
By SARAH WEBER
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, there is no running water. Electric service is sporadic. Malnutrition is endemic. To say the least, providing health care is a struggle.
Yet, in September, the new St. Damien Hospital will open its doors, and Humility of Mary Sister Judy Dohner and her team of nurses want to be ready. Sister Judy and the nurses are visiting St. Elizabeth and St. Joseph Health centers this week to learn about hospital policies, procedures and equipment that are used in the U.S.
Sister Judy, a former employee of St. Elizabeth's, has lived in Haiti for five years. She initially moved there to provide medical aid to the poor. Three years ago, she accepted the administrator's position at St. Damien, a free hospital for the poor that primarily serves children.
Receiving funds
St. Damien will receive $30,000 per year for the next three years from Catholic Healthcare Partners to help with the new facility. Catholic Healthcare Partners also helped arrange the nurses' visit to St. Elizabeth's and St. Joseph's and sponsored their trip. Catholic Healthcare Partners is the parent organization of Humility of Mary Heath Partners, which operates the two local hospitals.
This the is the first time Marie Iderle Fenestor, director of nursing in pediatrics, Immacula Fleurantin, supervisor of clinics, and Marlene Joseph, Fenestor's assistant, have traveled to the United States. When asked what their first impressions were, with Sister Judy acting as a translator from Creole to English, they said that they were impressed with the clear signs and organization in the hospitals and airports.
"It's very organized and very disciplined," Fenestor said.
Joseph said, "I like the people, they are very kind."
'State of the art'
Though the new hospital will be state of the art on Haitian standards, the technology is still more than 30 years behind the United States' health care systems. Unreliable electricity means that any equipment that needs electricity to run can't be used at the hospital. However, the new facility will still be a vast improvement.
"They're at where we were in the '70s," said Mariann Pacak, one of the nurses at St. E's who helped teach the Haitian nurses.
One of Haiti's primary medical problems is malnutrition, but the nurses regularly see cases of tuberculosis, respiratory problems, malaria, polio and HIV. The visit will focus primarily on pediatric health care because most of St. Damien patients are children. There are about 100 inpatients at the hospital and the nurses see an additional 65 to 75 children per day.
"We do have them coming from all over the provinces but they have to get themselves there," Fenestor said.
Transportation challenges
Transporting sick children to the clinic can be a challenge -- even main roads in Haiti are dirt and difficult to travel.
The nurses said that their goal is to learn as much as they can during their 6-day visit.
"[I want to] compare and learn about the equipment and from the experience of the other nurses," Fleurantin said.
Fenestor said, "We want to be a model hospital to teach the parents and the staff by what we learn and what we take back to Haiti."
While it was difficult to get the government paperwork necessary to come to the U.S., the nurses emphasized that they would like to continue education visits.