The Real Medicine clinic opened on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010. On opening day we saw 166 patients and by the second day that number grew to well over 200.
See more photos of Real Medicine in Haiti
Support Real Medicine in Haiti
One of RMF’s guiding principles is that we approach our work “one child at a time”, focusing on individuals, real impacts and tangible results even as we implement large-scale, projects affecting millions of people. This approach, while effective, is never easy. We get attached. This past month, I’ve been reminded of how rewarding one child at a time can be and also of how painful.
I met Abishek, aged 7, one night last December at Real Medicine’s office in Jhabua. I was cranky for spending a late-night in the office sorting through expenses when Jimmy, our project coordinator, brought in a boy and his father who had heard about RMF and wanted to see if we could help them. Even in the dim light I could tell that Abishek was not well. His bony hand clung around his father’s neck as his father told me about Abishek’s battle with cancer and hospitals and the family’s battle with debt and mistreatment. Abishek had been diagnosed with a Wilms tumor, a form of cancer not necessarily fatal in the West, if caught early, but which was already in the late stages because of the poor rural medical system in Jhabua. As Abishek started to get really sick and his stomach began to swell drastically, he and his family were bounced around from hospital to hospital, his treatment being ever referred, deferred, by doctors unable to tell the seriousness of his condition. He finally ended up at a private hospital in Indore where the hospital charged his family obscene amounts of money (which they had to borrow from money lenders to cover) and performed a surgery that another later doctor told me was a butcher’s job. It is suspected, and highly probably given this hospital’s reputation, that the surgeon purposely did not remove the entire tumor so that there would be more to remove later, for another surgery fee. Further, we learned that Abishek was only beingadministered 3 of the 5 recommended chemotherapy agents he required. He went through all of the side-effects of chemo, but with little benefit. Sounds unimaginable, but sometimes medicine as a business overrides the Hippocratic Oath.
Things were not looking good for Abishek when we met him, but every child deserves a chance. I called on a friend whose father is the chief of surgery at the best pediatric hospital in Ahmadabad, 10 hours away and he immediately agreed to see Abishek, free of cost. The doctors, while warning us of the worst, said Abishek had a small chance of surviving and started him right away on the correct chemo. We took Abishek and his family back and forth to the hospital in Ahmadabad, pestering doctors for quicker results, bothering nurses for extra blankets, and even donating blood to Abishek.
While most of the Abishek’s doctors, neighbors, and family members had given up hope of his survival, we stubbornly, continued to consult with experts, continued to look for better chemotherapy agents, and showered Abishek with his favorite chocolates and juice boxes. Ever y visit to Abishek’s house was heartbreaking as we watched Abishek waste away, cancer ravaging his body, and imagining that this all could have been avoided if Abishek’s cancer was detected earlier and if this criminal hospital in Indore hadn’t put greed over medicine.
While going through the heartbreaking journey with Abishek, my spirits and hopes were also lifted by another one of our special cases, Sachini, in Sri Lanka.
THANK YOU for coming out last night to support Real Medicine Foundation Haiti at House of Blues.
It’s one thing to have amazing musicians support your work, and another to have the community step in. Together you helped us raise $25,000!!
Thank you so everyone who came to join us, and for those who stopped by our booth to find out more or buy RMF support items. Last night we made close to $2000 just in sales alone. Thank you to those who bought our t-shirts–wear them and help spread the word! We have more signed posters thanks to CAA’s limitless generocity and we will be selling them through our website. Stay tuned for that information or, if you simply cannot wait, contact us and we would be happy to get one to you sooner!
Please know that every cent you donate to RMF is put to good use. As you heard last night, this week we launched a two-story medical facility in Port-au-Prince where people can bring their children, have medical consultations, give birth, have minor surgery, and more. This out of the wreckage of just a few weeks ago. We are opening a second clinic and also working on creating a mobile clinic facility that can go to patients who may not be able to come to us.
Real Medicine Foundation is determined to stay in Haiti and make sure that the communities there are given the stable support they need to get back on their feet.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
February 4, 2010
By Dr. Martina Fuchs, Michael Lear and Kevin Connell
We saw 166 patients at our medical clinic in Pernier, Port-au-Prince, on February 3, opening day; already more than 200 today.
Pernier, Port-au-Prince Medical Clinic
Dr. Martina Fuchs and Michael Lear at the opening ceremony and healthcare education on February 3, 2010
One of the many patients with an amputation
Real Medicine Foundation Opens First Medical Clinic in Port au Prince, Haiti
Los Angeles, CA – February 2, 2010 - Real Medicine Foundation announces that it will open its first medical clinic tomorrow, February 3, 2010, in Port Au Prince, Haiti.
Real Medicine founder and CEO Dr. Martina Fuchs says, “The whole community is involved. We have sixty people working together. As we gather supplies, local carpenters are building exam tables. It is truly a beautiful group effort.”
The clinic, located in a two-story building that appears to be a safe structure despite the recent 7.0 earthquake, will offer a number of services. The clinic plans to offer internal medicine, physical rehabilitation, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, minor surgery, and triage. The two-story building will have three exam rooms on each floor in addition to a laboratory and kitchen. It will also have handicap access.
Haiti three weeks later
Tomorrow will mark three weeks since the massive January 12th earthquake in Haiti, and tent cities remain full, even as some businesses and factories are beginning to reopen in Port-au-Prince. Now that massive amounts of aid have arrived, distribution problems have cropped up and are being addressed.
The World Food Program has begun a new system of delivering rice to 10,000 Haitians per day at each of 16 women-only distribution points around the city – restricted to women, since young men often muscle their way to the front of distribution lines, and the women are viewed as more likely to fairly divide up the food. Aid chiefs and donor nations are warning that Haiti will need at least a decade of painstaking reconstruction. (40 photos total)
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
February 2, 2010
By Dr. Martina Fuchs and Michael Lear
Real Medicine Foundation will open its first clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, tomorrow, Wednesday, February 3!
Patients have already been lining up yesterday when they saw first signs of cleaning, carpentry, stocking medical supplies in a 2-story building in Pernier 19, Port-au-Prince. We’ll have 3 examination rooms on the first floor as well as waiting and triage area, and 3 examination rooms on the second floor – pediatrics, internal medicine, minor surgery, OB/Gyn including deliveries and day beds.
We’ll also have our own lab and will provide rehabilitation, physical therapy and prosthesis outreach for the many amputated earthquake victims. Lab equipment and Ob/Gyn exam table are being secured in Santo Domingo, DR, with the generous support of our angel, Mirtha Cabral. We are working in collaboration with The Jimani Project group in Haiti and are very excited about this new partnership. Everyone has been fantastic, making this possible in record time.
Following our global model, we will employ a Haitian Medical Staff and provide support through our volunteer network of international physicians and nurses, as well as medical supplies.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
January 31, 2010
By Dr. Martina Fuchs and Michael Lear
At a meeting today with the US Army and the World Food Programme, we were updated that everyone is very aware of the precarious food and water situation. The extent of the disaster is of a magnitude that no one has ever experienced before.
Today, a 2-week effort was launched by USAID and the UN to feed the nearly 2 million homeless earthquake victims. 10,000 metric tons of rice, beans and oil are coordinated per day targeting at least 1,700 families per day through 16 distribution points. Because there are no warehouses to store food, distribution efforts are coordinated with the US military to ensure security during distribution. What is important to mention and what we experienced personally, is that there is no violence. People are very peaceful, though the despair is palpable.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8489790.stm
Brief situational update:
Food and shelter remain the priorities for assistance to hundreds of thousands of people in need. Health priorities include mobile clinics for first aid, psychosocial support and post-operative care. Cases of tetanus have been reported. Suspected cases of measles were confirmed as chicken pox. The WASH Cluster is reaching almost 500,000 people a day with water. The port has been declared unsafe for incoming ships following an in-depth assessment. Port-au-Prince airport is operating at peak capacity with an average of 120 incoming flights per day. The Government reports that some 340,000 people have now left Port-au-Prince with the largest number of arrivals in Artibonite department.
Michael Lear
RMF Haiti
Bodies were still pulled from this building on January 29, 2010 – 4 alone in the morning of that day. A total of 250 persons died in these buildings, a popular Caribbean market.
“I’d rather smell tires burning than bodies,” our Haitian driver told us as we traveled down Rue Jean Champs De Mars and Jean Jacques Dessaline, where the density of devastation is overwhelming yet still not as bad as Carrefour Feuille. It was evening and every other block had a fire burning.
Interestingly, with the exception of fleets of fire trucks in the area, the streets hummed along with an eerie normality. It was unfathomable to think that everyone we saw would be sleeping in the street in just a few hours but this was the harsh reality throughout the city. No one sleeps inside anymore.
Right now, it is still hot and dry here in Port-au-Prince, but everyone is scared for the rainy season to begin. One of our Haitian friends said, ”We Haitians don’t dodge bullets, but we try to dodge the rain.”
Even without an earthquake, the rain put everyone who had a house on and up the many hills in the precarious situation that a mudslide could take the whole house down. Now, with unstable ruins everywhere, it is not safe for anyone to go back into their houses, and many houses that were hit, but not completely destroyed will probably not survive the next rain. So there might be a few more days, maybe a few more weeks left, but the rain will come eventually. Authorities predict that the rains will compound the devastation and cause more, unseen problems including further collapse of buildings, contaminated ground water sources as decomposing bodies and feces are overwhelming the already strained and destroyed sanitation system and infrastructure.
As we drove from refugee camp to refugee camp, night fell and it got dark in Port-au-Prince. Really dark. There is no electricity in the city. The few traffic lights that work are powered by solar power. Everything else is pitch black. What do you do in a refugee camp with hundreds of thousands at night when you have no light? There is no sanitation, no water either.
We did not see any violence or aggression, just despair. People were actually extremely peaceful.
![[VolunteerMatch - Where Volunteering Begins.]](http://www.volunteermatch.org/images/2.0/new_logo.gif){kind=logo}