Tag Archives: Haiti

Expectations –When Helping is Complicated

Kim McLennan, an accomplished physical therapist, and long-time CFHI volunteer, is now in Haiti and has been communicating to us some of the complexities of just trying to help.  A veteran of many humanitarian missions, Kim knows that to lend a helping hand is not always as easy as it looks on the surface.  The crisis in Haiti, and the

Some of the many peopel who have volunteered their time going to Haiti in the aftermath of the 7.1 earthquake

This is a U.S. Navy photo of some of the many vounteers who have gone to Haiti to help after the great earthquake

outpouring of volunteers to give assistance has amplified the Grey Areas of coordinating and managing international aid.  The questions of culture,  ethics, passion, compassion, and the realities of unexpected complexities are raised in her moving, first-hand account.  Dr. Evaleen Jones, CFHI’s Founder and President, asked Kim if we could share her writings through this Blog.  Kim gives us her experience alongside her on-the-spot reflections which are informed by her years of cross-cultural work in some very challenging situations.

We are grateful to Kim for her permission to present her observations and thoughts here.  Unfinished and raw, they give us an unvarnished view of reality with no easy answers –much as the real situations in Haiti, and elsewhere in the world.  You are welcome to click on the “Read More” button to leave a comment.

Expectations

Here in Haiti, 5 months after the devastation of a 7.1 earthquake, volunteers are coming in droves.  I am one of them.  By the end of my stay, I will have been here 7 weeks.  Most of my fellow volunteers come for one week or two if they’re lucky.  Professionally, the greatest number are doctors, nurses, emergency room specialists, pediatric and wound care specialists, prosthetists and physical therapists. The majority have never been to a developing country or to Haiti before they arrive.

They come with the expectation of being welcomed for their concern and service, everyone paying their own expenses and hoping their week of selflessness will do some lasting good.  Most leave, probably feeling that their mission was accomplished, even if in some small isolated way.  This morning, at the hospital I’m working in, there are 20 American doctors, nurses and other hopeful people wanting to do something useful.  They’re surprised when they realize how different the system is here, how charts and notes and procedures that are standard in the US are hardly used here. They are surprised that the Haitian nurses don’t speak English or seem happy to share their small desk or coveted stash of medical supplies.  Many come with their own supplies of state of the art medical technology and toys and blankets and shoes.  Most of it is very useful and appreciated by the patients.  The Haitian staff seems to disappear when the volunteers arrive to see the rare and unusual patient injuries that have occurred here.

There have been many surgeries and interventions that would have never occurred without the volunteers being here.  External fixators and wound vacs are found throughout the hospital, and the meticulous care given to the patient’s wounds is without parallel.  But this is precisely the problem. The nurses here do not have the training to change the dressings or change the wound vacs and no one is training them. There will be no physical therapy or discharge planning when the NGOs pull out for good.  For all their good intentions, the volunteers seem to ‘take over’ when they arrive and then complain that the Haitian staff doesn’t seem interested.  Cultural differences aside, who likes it when someone new arrives on the scene, walks in,  starts to do your job and then leaves, making you feel less than adequate after witnessing such expertise.

As you know, this is a touchy subject.  Everyone who comes here has the best intentions, simply wanting to help.  The problem is when they come, they come in groups with their own comfortable systems in place, just in a new setting.  Most of the Haitian hospitals are not equipped to house or feed these additional visitors and the plumbing in Haiti already is barely serviceable.  They often don’t seem to try to learn a few words of Creole, or go outside the compound to meet the Haitians and share a local meal.  It probably feels like a vacation except that the food is scarce and the air-conditioning doesn’t work.

The first time I went overseas to volunteer 12 years ago in South Africa, I stayed for one month and it took me almost three weeks to feel I was accepted a little by the local staff and they still did not seem keen to have me in their midst.  I have been looking ever since for better ways to interact and contribute to poor people in need of basic healthcare.  I believe the answer is recognizing the potential of the local people….

It truly does no good to ‘do your thing” as a volunteer, no matter how much it is needed if you don’t teach someone else how to do it also.  Volunteering in Haiti can contribute to the Haitian infrastructure only if we volunteers think about the consequences of us being here.  Are we willing to be patient and work alongside someone whose future may improve from our training?  Are we willing to trust that they may know a better way than the way we’ve been taught?   We are influencing an entire system by our presence and we should be including them every step of the way…..”

Everyone Pitching in to Help Haiti and Some Old Lessons Re-Learned

It is true that Child Family Health International does not have any programs in Haiti.  It is also true that we are part of the world community and, in a situation like this, if there is a way for us to help, we will do all that we can do, as we did in the Asian Tsunami and have done in other events over the years.  CFHI has actually worked in the past with our friends at VIDA and a Haitian partner, the Consortium for the Development of Haiti, to send medical supplies to a number of grassroots clinics and hospitals.  It was a very successful endeavor.  And so when news of the earthquake came, we tried to re-initiate our successful partnership and get disaster relief supplies to Haiti as quickly as possible.  We sent out a message to CFHI supporters, who were already contacting us to find ways to help, and they responded generously.

Our great friends at VIDA (Volunteers for Inter-American Development Assistance) were also right on it, and within about 24 hours of the Tuesday quake, they had assembled over one million dollars in urgently needed first aid and disaster medical supplies.  Being on the West Coast, we found ourselves at a disadvantage as the access to the airport and other avenues to get supplies in were quickly clogged.  It was also only later, by late Friday and Saturday, that the impact of the earthquake on the functionality of the airport and the seaport were really known.  Once it was obvious that all avenues to get supplies in would have to go through the military (directly or indirectly) and staging areas in Florida and other close points, we realized that there was no way to get a shipment directly to Haiti.

We found great support from another wonderful NGO, MedShare, which recently opened a warehouse on the West Coast.  They were dealing with the same issues, and through their East Coast connections, were able to get shipments into the pipeline for Haiti.  We are grateful for all this collaboration and happy to be in such good company.  Our role is very small but, as we are seeing,  if we all pitch in and do what we can, a big difference can be made.

On a personal note, having spent some time in Haiti in the early ’90s, when I worked for Food For The Poor, I was moved by the earthquake through the memories that I carry.  My visits to Haiti gave me an experience that has stayed with me ever since.  The overall work of Food For The Poor was refreshingly simple: provide for basic needs, and develop ways for people to pull themselves out of poverty.  Expecting to find people beaten down by poverty, I was challenged to reevaluate my assumptions.  Sure the poverty was there, and it was among the worst I have seen anywhere in the world, and some of the people were caught in its clutches in a way that made it hard for them to break free.  But, as I have seen in other places, that wasn’t the whole story.  By and large, I saw, in Haiti, people who did not let poverty define them or their happiness.  These are the people that don’t make the news but carry on their lives as best they can.  I gained deep respect for people who perhaps had a better sense of the important things in life than I did.   It was a lesson I have tried never to forget and one that I am reminded of again as I see images that trigger forgotten memories of sadness and beauty, despair and hope all mixed and juxtaposed in a society so abused by history, and so full of potential.  The people of Haiti re-taught me  lessons of never making assumptions, of never writing anyone off, and of  the richness that comes from allowing another person, another culture, to change the way I think.  I carry these lessons to my work today, even  as I carry the memories and, too, the hope that the resounding resilience of the Haitian people and  their great joy in living will raise them up, once again, from being dealt a terrible blow.