| 1.25.2010
A Little Girl Named Edeline
 The little girl just wouldn’t let go of the trauma surgeon. But the doctor from Seattle is needed elsewhere and that’s when Jhpiego’s Rich Lamporte, the father of two young daughters, steps in.
“Fortunately, she came to me,’’ says Lamporte who scoops up the toddler during the Jhpiego team’s visit to a maternal and child health clinic in Croix des Bouquets, a town outside of Port-au-Prince, on Sunday.
It’s no wonder the toddler wouldn’t let go. Clinic staff tell Lamporte and the others of the dire circumstances in which the orphan had been found. “Edeline sat for two days in front of a full (Port-au-Prince) orphanage with a 14-year-old caring for 5 kids,” Lamporte writes in an
e-mail to colleagues in Baltimore.
The Seattle doctor picks up the child, who had a broken wrist and multiple lacerations. Other children had severe pneumonia and some had dysentery, he says.
All of the children were treated by volunteer Haitian pediatricians.
“We provided some Jhpiego donated food to her and the other two orphans in the clinic,’’ says Lamporte. The team also gives clinic doctors water purification tablets – a donation from Procter & Gamble – and materials for pediatric splints.
It is one small gesture of kindness for one of Haiti’s smallest earthquake victims.
1.23.2010
“His world was coming to an end”
Jhpiego’s Rich Lamporte, Anne Pfitzer and Dr. Willy Shasha were lost in Port-au-Prince. Streets familiar to them were blocked by rubble and debris; others were crowded with the remains of earthquake victims, now a week-old.
Jean Wesner Cazenave, the driver for Jhpiego’s Haiti staff and office, came to guide them through the broken city and later shared with them his own harrowing tale of escape when the earthquake struck last Tuesday.
Lamporte recounted it in an e-mail to colleagues in Baltimore:
Wesner was on the way to our office when the quake hit. The 4x4 double cab truck swerved and he struggled to bring it under control. He stopped, closed his eyes and thought his world was coming to an end. The shaking lasted 40 seconds.
He made his way to our nearby office, parked the car, saw that our two staff members in the intact building were ok.They all left for their homes.
Wesner arrived in this neighborhood and found his home collapsed, flattened. But his wife and 9 year old child had escaped harm. He is now staying with a nearby relative, and has basic food and shelter needs met.
He was very glad to see us - and we were very relieved (to see him) as well.
1.22.2010
Arrival in Haiti: A New Colleague, a Valued Partner, “Smell of Death”
When Jhpiego’s Rich Lamporte, Dr. Willy Shasha and Anne Pfitzer cross the Haitian border, it’s a cacophonous scene of beeping trucks, honking convoys and clamoring Haitians trying to walk into the Dominican Republic. But the team is distracted—good news awaits them on the other side.
A Canadian contact of a Jhpiego supervisor wants to connect the team with a group of doctors from the Haitian Society of Ob/Gyns. The group has a facility that survived the earthquake, though it’s not equipped. Could this potentially be a home for the maternal and newborn clinic the Jhpiego team wants to establish for pregnant women, mothers and newborns?
Soon after they cross into Haiti, the Jhpiego team telephones Dr. Adrien Laure, of the Haitian Society of Ob/Gyns. Lamporte fires off an e-mail to Jhpiego’s Baltimore office to update them on what the team has learned about services available for pregnant women, mothers and their babies, and the potential for collaboration.
When we contacted Dr. Adrien, he showed up in five minutes. Turns out we were three blocks from him … Said all the trauma in PAP displaced all emergency obstetric and newborn care. "The international docs politely asked us to move out, so we lost our maternity ward at the general hospital.” It is unclear when it will return to a maternity ward.
The clinic is in a town 30 to 40 minutes from PAP… Adrien got a call from the head of the midwives association, they are in disarray, trying to find out who is left. Need assistance organizing.
For the 15 years Jhpiego has worked in Haiti, its mission has been to strengthen the midwifery care in the country and train doctors, nurses and midwives in emergency obstetrical care. It has taken the Jhpiego team two days to reach Haiti—flights from Baltimore to Puerto Rico to Santo Domingo, an eight-hour stop in the Dominican Republic to buy medical supplies and equipment and then a 180-mile drive to reach Port-au-Prince.
With the stop at the border, the team joins a convoy heading to Port-au-Prince.
Stuck in a big traffic jam. We see Haitian police presence, people are fairly calm ... Croix des bouquets is the name of the town with the public health clinic. They have 12 ob/gyns willing to do volunteer work for complicated cases ... Adrien said Jhpiego was a valued partner... “This is the kind of partnership we can have.”
The intention has been to connect with Jhpiego’s six-member staff on the ground, ensure their safety in the aftermath of last week’s earthquake and organize services for pregnant women, mothers, newborns and children—often forgotten in the crush of treating victims with trauma injuries.
Since Lamporte and the team left Santo Domingo, they have had little luck reaching their Haitian colleague, Dr. Lucito Jeannis, Jhpiego’s Country Director, who survived the quake, to confer on the work they will do when they arrive.
Then a text message arrives.
Jeannis is at work, meeting with members of the Ministry of Health in Port-au-Prince and contacts at international groups as well as other health care professionals. Our doctor is looking to identify ways Jhpiego can assist in restoring maternal and neonatal services, and longer term, help restart a damaged health system.
When they enter Port-au-Prince, Lamporte, Shasha and Pfitzer see up close the damage and devastation. They drive toward the offices of a partner organization, Save the Children. Lamporte updates Baltimore in an e-mail:
One of the roads to SAVE, supposed to be near the Montana hotel, we found totally blocked. Wesner, Jhpiego’s driver, is coming to guide us . . . Crew from Guatemala working the Montana, smell of death in air.
1.21.2010 No spare
Tire tread blew off Five miles outside of Santo Domingo. Now travelling without a spare.
So begins the Jhpiego team’s 180-mile journey from the Dominican Republic’s capital to the Haitian border.
Crammed in a hired van and e-mailing from his cell phone, Rich Lamporte updates his office in Baltimore on the progress he and Jhpiego colleagues Dr. Willy Shasha and Anne Pfitzer are making in reaching Port-au-Prince, where they plan to open a field clinic for pregnant women, newborns, mothers and children. Dr. Lucito Jeannis, Jhpiego’s Country Director who survived last week’s earthquake, is waiting for them to bring medical supplies and equipment.
Have spent much frustration getting sat phone to go through to Lucito. Will keep trying. Have attached sat antennae to roof of mini-van known as a gua-gua. This same phrase in Chilean Spanish means baby.
Baby, carry us to where we need to go.
The mini-van is overloaded with gear, much it of hauled from Baltimore, and the rest bought in Santo Domingo. Gas for the generator. Catheters, aspirin and topical anesthesia. Balloons and chalk for kids. Misoprostol, anti-biotics, eye cream for newborns, magnesium sulphate, syringes, oral contraceptives.
This is just to get us started, we need to request donations.
A clinic’s worth of discounted supplies and nearly everything an ob/gyn, nurse or midwife would need to deliver a baby in a safe, sanitary environment, treat her for postpartum hemorrhage or eclampsia (two leading causes of maternal deaths in the developing world) and provide emergency obstetric care for mother and newborn should complications arise.
The Merengue (music) pounds as the driver Roberto sings. He said pray to god we do not have another flat. We laugh. We stare up at a dramatic mountain range with steep, forested slopes, passing through small towns, full of election signs for the May 26 election.
 As driver Roberto Antonio Hernandez sings along with his CD and the countryside flashes by, the Jhpiego team devours six chicken sandwiches and runs through a series of strategies to help when they hit Port-au-Prince. Everyone is trying to connect with other agencies on the ground – the United Nations, the World Health Organization and a host of other NGOs.
Beautiful hue of orange as the sun sets….We are savoring the beautiful view before we enter what we know will be a scene with many difficult images.
Lamporte and Pfitzer power up their laptops because their cell phones are almost out of juice. They wonder aloud if there will be electricity at their overnight stop, Barahona, and room in a hotel.
If not, Roberto says he has a friend in town where we can crash. We ask ourselves what will be beyond the next turn . . .
In Barahona, there is room at the hotel and the team meets Dominican civil defense workers, just back from Port-au-Prince, who are covered in dust from the earthquake wreckage with medical masks hanging from around their necks. They talk about the improved security in the Haitian capital and an onslaught of wounded they expect to arrive in the DR from Haiti.
At the end of a long day… My sense of purpose increases with every kilometer as we approach the border. Messages about improved security serve to increase both my anticipation and comfort . . .
The team now feels we have enough initial knowledge of how best to cross the border, find our tent space, communicate with our staff, connect with nascent obstetrical services and coordinate with the UN health cluster. We also know that all our assumptions, best guesses, could all turn on a dime.
1.20.2010
Jhpiego Team Arrives in Santo Domingo, En Route to Haiti
As the American Airlines flight took off from Puerto Rico, the pilot made an announcement in Spanish. “He thanked everyone who was heading to Haiti,” said Rich Lamporte, the lead member of Jhpiego’s 3-person team who were on board the 737, “and everybody in the plane clapped.”
Lamporte, along with OB/GYN Willy Shasha and program manager Anne Pfitzer, left BWI – Thurgood Marshall airport at 8am Wednesday morning. They stopped in Puerto Rico where they were joined on the plane by about 25 health care professionals, who also were headed to Haiti. The Jhpiego team had started their day before dawn, making last minute preparations to join their Haitian colleagues in Port-au-Prince and determine the best way to ensure the health care needs of pregnant women, newborns and children are met. This was after only having about 2 hours sleep each last night because of packing, e-mailing, and making final arrangements.
They arrived in the Dominican Republic midday with plans to spend the night and finalize passage for the trip to Port-au-Prince – commonly referred to by international aid workers now as PAP.
As the plane landed in the sweltering humidity and heat, the Jhpiego team felt a sense of relief – and anticipation.
The group of Puerto Rican doctors and nurses that joined the flight in San Juan were shepherded through immigration. “They were hopping on a bus and planned to stay in a church in Port-au-Prince and start providing services”, said Lamporte.
The Jhpiego team was hauling overstuffed excess luggage filled with food, water purification tablets, clothes, tents and basic medical supplies. Other flight passengers had been kind enough to share their baggage allotment with them. Lamporte and his colleagues passed through customs without a hitch and got into a cab for the ride to a local hotel.
“In talking with the taxi driver, we asked about Santo Domingans’ feelings about Haiti. He said they were supportive. Their trauma center is overwhelmed. He did say there seems to be a pretty heavy movement of people until yesterday and it’s starting to slack off a bit. His company was transporting people from International Medical Corps, charging $500 a car to go to Port –au-Prince.”
Jhpiego’s team got off relatively cheap -- $50 for all three to go to the hotel.
“We’re glad to be here and anxious to meet with Lucito (Jeannis),” Haiti’s Country Director in Port-au-Prince, Lamporte said by telephone. “We want to get down to work, get to the local team and make sure they are in good shape so we can all participate in the recovery. “
“My wife said, ‘Don’t call me until you have a moment to breathe,” said Lamporte.“ Of course, I’m not sure when that might be….”
But first things first: a cold beer, a meal, shower and then some sleep. They all recognize it may be their last for awhile.
1.18.2010
Jhpiego Team Heads to Haiti
BALTIMORE – A team of Jhpiego health care workers will leave Baltimore for Haiti on Wednesday morning from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.
Jhpiego, based in Baltimore and an affiliate of The Johns Hopkins University, is dispatching physician Willy Shasha, an obstetrician and gynecologist; Anne Pfitzer, a senior program manager; and Richard Lamporte, a member of the organization’s leadership team, to Port au Prince to work with Haitian staff already on the ground to ensure the health-care needs of pregnant women and newborns.
For 35 years, Jhpiego has worked in more than 150 countries preventing needless deaths of women and their families. Jhpiego is not a relief organization. Its core mission is empowering front line health workers by giving them effective, low-cost, hands-on solutions to strengthen the delivery of health care services for all.
“Our mission now will be focused on the pregnant women and newborns of Haiti, a population often forgotten in the devastation of natural disasters because health care providers and relief workers are attending to health care emergencies,’’ Jhpiego CEO Leslie Mancuso said. “A pregnant woman can be an emergency in a minute, endangering two lives not just one.”
Jhpiego’s team traveling to Haiti is also charged with assisting the Jhpiego Haitian team of doctors and nurse midwives to review the long-term health needs of women and children and using its experience working in low-resource settings to help rebuild the health-care system in Haiti. They will be working with other local health care experts, government agencies and non-governmental agencies.
The team is bringing with it basic medical supplies and equipment, including antiseptic creams, sterile gloves, gauze and other items. Lucito Jeannis, Jhpiego’s country director in Haiti, has asked for such materials to help equip a fledgling medical clinic that has opened in the home of a neighbor who is also a doctor. Jhpiego learned Friday that all six members of its Haitian staff were alive and well.
“We want to ensure that pregnant women have a safe and sanitary environment to deliver their babies. As important is to have a trained health care provider overseeing those deliveries. That can mean a skilled birth attendant, a midwife, nurse or doctor,” Mancuso said.
During its 15 years in Haiti, Jhpiego has trained more than 400 midwives, OBGYNs and other medical staff to improve the care of pregnant women and their newborns. While it is not a relief organization, Jhpiego has had experience helping countries recover from disasters and with low-resource countries, including Afghanistan.
After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated South Asia, Jhpiego sent a team to assist its 20-member staff in Indonesia. In Aceh, Jhpiego re-established and equipped 20 midwife practices and two midwifery schools; established and equipped the obstetric unit of a provincial hospital and equipped 50 village midwives with delivery and suturing kits so they could assist pregnant women.
Jhpiego also recruited and deployed 127 midwives to fill the gap in reproductive health services at health facilities and camps for displaced persons. Services provided by these midwives covered an estimated 1,504 children and 3,852 women.
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