Many of you are well aware of my public health work and have been following my blogs since the first day I stepped foot in Haiti. My public health training program has grown, our work has spanned from Tuberculosis treatment to water sanitation to bed bugs and malaria.
Our clinic is expected to see more patients than we can possible handle as people continue to flee the city and make their way to Les Cayes. People from the villages we work in are traveling by foot to collect the dead bodies of their relatives so that they could have a proper funeral. The country is devastated.
The world-wide response to Haiti is phenomenal. While it goes without saying, it is horrendous that it has taken such a disaster to bring what has been the poorest country in this hemisphere for over a century, back into the world's sight. This is our chance to truly change the course of this country. It will not be good enough to simply rebuild what has collapsed, bandage the wounded and bury the dead. This world-wide effort to help Haiti must be greater than repair. This is our chance to save Haiti, to build an infrastructure, to pull Haiti from its chains of absolute poverty, to develop a system for potable water, to bring health care, food, clothing and safety into the lives of a people whose human rights have been forgotten. While we may have lost 100,000 from this disaster, there are still 9 million lives left to save.
Our supplies are evaporating but our manpower has never been greater. People from the villages are coming together with my public health workers to rescue, treat and care for the sick and injured.
To donate to the clinic I work with in Haiti and the team of public health workers that are being trained through my program, you can do it two ways.
Via Credit Card: Click here to make a secure online donation: http://www.freethekids.org/.
Via Check: Make check payable to Theo's Work and mail to: Theo's Work c/o FreeTheKids.org 2303 W. Market Street Greensboro, NC 27403
Please write "Public Health" on the memo line.
Your donation is received by my clinic staff in full as there are no administrative costs in getting the money to our targeted areas. In-kind donations such as basic medical supplies (gauze, suture, gowns, gloves etc.) are also greatly appreciated.
If anyone is interested in going to Haiti in the near future, please don't hesitate to contact me. I will be back in Haiti at least once this semester and then for the summer and I am always willing to host interested parties. The Haiti working group at Brown has been established under the Global Health Initiative at Brown and will be discussing a strategy on how Brown as a community can best aid Haiti in the long-term and how we as a medical school can become involved with medical schools in Haiti's capital city.
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