Second Mile Haiti: a sweet day

Today was a SWEET day.

It was awesome for several reasons not primarily because I discovered that I love grapefruit juice, although that was one of the major positives.

How ‘bout I get right to point. Yesterday we blogged, posted, emailed, and tweeted about our need for medicine and medical supplies. Not necessarily for you to send them to us, but for you to donate money towards their purchase here in Haiti.

You delivered. We woke up to a $190 PayPal donation and quickly made plans to go to the pharmacy later in the afternoon. Here's what we got.

It's an amazing start.

There are some awesome hospitals in Haiti and awesome doctors and nurses too. The reality is that people too far removed from these facilities wait and wait and wait and sometimes never do scrounge up the money for transportation to the hospital to care of the little things. If they do find a way to the hospital scrounging up enough money to pay for lab tests and medication is yet another obstacle to health.

That's why you find wounds that were never sutured...

Fungal infections that have taken over... itchy rashes that keep people up at night and spread amongst family members...

and a whole assortment of other things that I won't mention that aren't for the faint of heart.

So thank you.

We're excited about the opportunity to partner with this church and reach out to a community that's sure to have a few health needs. We'll blog again after the big clinic day. :)

The week's not over yet and all donations made this week will still go to the purchase of medicine and first aid supplies. We'd love to make a trip to the pharmacy everyday! There are still items, like a scale for example, that we'd love to purchase for use in these clinics and in our facility (when we have one).

Our ultimate goal is to promote hope and health not only for moms and their families, but for communities as well. This is perfect.

As was mentioned in the last post if you have access to any specialized medical equipment or supplies we'd love to get you in touch with our next visitors. Dana and Warrick from Washington are coming the first week in April. It's not to late to send items to them before they leave!

We are especially in need of the following

-otoscope

-blood pressure cuff

-urinalysis strips

-supplies for dressing changes

Shoot us an email at connect@secondmilehaiti.com

In other news, we had a fun time distributing anti-parasite medication to 300 school kids today!

In collaboration with Operation Blessing who provided the de-worming tablets and the Caris Foundation who is facilitating distribution all over Haiti, we had the privilege of doing the dirty work. "Dirty work" simply because the medicine doesn't taste good.

Children in Haiti between the ages of 1 and 14 are supposed to receive de-worming medication every six months. Parasitic infections can cause pain, anemia, malnutrition, diarrhea and dehydration, missed days of school and altogether unhappy kiddos.

Hopefully that won't be the case for students in this school.