Dear Members of the Brown Community,
The distressing situation in Haiti following the massive earthquake has left us all searching for ways of getting involved to bring aid and comfort to the people of Haiti. The urgent need for virtually every category of assistance calls upon us to respond quickly and decisively. Our community has responded generously and thoughtfully to humanitarian emergencies in the past, and I am certain that we can provide creative, effective, and sustained assistance as Haiti begins to rebuild.
Toward that end, I am appointing a committee to coordinate Brown’s relief efforts and to make recommendations about further measures the University community can undertake. Matthew Gutmann, vice president for international affairs, and Barrymore A. Bogues, professor of Africana Studies, will co-chair the committee, which will include faculty, administrators, and staff as well as undergraduate, graduate, and medical students.
Many members of the Brown community have expressed an interest in providing support to aid in the relief effort. The University has posted a page http://swearercenter.brown.edu/new/news/haiti-earthquake-relief, listing several organizations raising funds for Haiti. Humanitarian relief agencies are unanimous in pointing out that giving money is the single most effective course of action in the immediate aftermath of the January 12th earthquake. Even in these difficult financial times, I am committing resources to help the committee design ways of raising money that can be immediately applied to address the most urgent needs.
New England has a large community of Haitian immigrants who have strong ties to family members, relatives and friends in Haiti. A number of Brown community members — students, faculty, staff, and alumni — have lost family members or are anxiously awaiting reliable information from home. I want you to know that the University is seeking out and providing support to those members of our community. Please keep them in your thoughts.
Following its meeting this week, the Committee will report to the community on the efforts that we are undertaking as a University. This will not be an undertaking of short duration and we must be prepared to commit to ongoing efforts even after the initial phase of relief is over.
Thank you for your concern for the people of Haiti and for all that you elect to do to assist them in their time of need.
Sincerely,
Ruth J. Simmons
I have just been appointed to head the medical working group of this committee along with Dr. Timothy Flanigan, Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
A Doctor In Haiti
This is from Dr. Merline Milien, whom I've had the pleasure of working with on several occasions in Haiti.
On a flat mattress and a small blanquet francise and i are lying on the drive way of the Haitian academy where we spent the nights since the earthquake, just like everybody at port au prince, cabaret and all over the big south of HAiti. People used to be in the streets, walking, working, selling eveything, but now there are on the streets to sleep.
Most of the time in the past they considered Haiti as a country in needs but today, need is too weak to talk about Haiti. I heard that we will find help from other countries, even i don't see them yet till yesterday, but i am sure they will come, if they don't we will have more people dying from the decomposition of the dead bodies than from the earthquake. Port au prince start to be really smelly and it is scary.
In spite of anything we could ask, we need SANITATION. As a physician i can also say protection for us who escaped. If i want to list the needs, like food, clothes,toilet articles, shoes, and a roof are all important, we know that God is watching from the closest not just in the highest heaven, he is there with us.
While we lost several physicians, nurses in the catastrophe, we needs hands, we also need mental assistant for those people who are there watching they lovely ones died without able to do something, even for us too,when the clinic at the HAitian Academy has half falldown, it is just after we find hundreds of people coming for help and we just say sorry, i didn't have any gloves or anyother things in our way to help, and i was thinking about our limitation that become not just a limitation but impossibility, several are died before they can move to other places, 7 of the big hospital at port au prince collapsed so reffer someone is not the right word for the moment, some time later on the afternoon, we saw at the neighborhood some missionaries who have a burn center, they opened it to help peple, but they couldn't take in charge the open wound and bad fractures and at this time we went over and asked them to help, we were relieved in being able to do something, they have mostly things to take care of a burned patient, but we found some sutures and we did the job even our feet get tired, we used our knees and till we can't anymore, it was the same scenarios for the last four days. We also needs pads for the ladies, as the marquets are not available we saw people wth their period and don't find pads to put on.
Sorry if i talk too much, i know i was in shock, but God allowed me to do well with the patients.
Love
Merline
On a flat mattress and a small blanquet francise and i are lying on the drive way of the Haitian academy where we spent the nights since the earthquake, just like everybody at port au prince, cabaret and all over the big south of HAiti. People used to be in the streets, walking, working, selling eveything, but now there are on the streets to sleep.
Most of the time in the past they considered Haiti as a country in needs but today, need is too weak to talk about Haiti. I heard that we will find help from other countries, even i don't see them yet till yesterday, but i am sure they will come, if they don't we will have more people dying from the decomposition of the dead bodies than from the earthquake. Port au prince start to be really smelly and it is scary.
In spite of anything we could ask, we need SANITATION. As a physician i can also say protection for us who escaped. If i want to list the needs, like food, clothes,toilet articles, shoes, and a roof are all important, we know that God is watching from the closest not just in the highest heaven, he is there with us.
While we lost several physicians, nurses in the catastrophe, we needs hands, we also need mental assistant for those people who are there watching they lovely ones died without able to do something, even for us too,when the clinic at the HAitian Academy has half falldown, it is just after we find hundreds of people coming for help and we just say sorry, i didn't have any gloves or anyother things in our way to help, and i was thinking about our limitation that become not just a limitation but impossibility, several are died before they can move to other places, 7 of the big hospital at port au prince collapsed so reffer someone is not the right word for the moment, some time later on the afternoon, we saw at the neighborhood some missionaries who have a burn center, they opened it to help peple, but they couldn't take in charge the open wound and bad fractures and at this time we went over and asked them to help, we were relieved in being able to do something, they have mostly things to take care of a burned patient, but we found some sutures and we did the job even our feet get tired, we used our knees and till we can't anymore, it was the same scenarios for the last four days. We also needs pads for the ladies, as the marquets are not available we saw people wth their period and don't find pads to put on.
Sorry if i talk too much, i know i was in shock, but God allowed me to do well with the patients.
Love
Merline
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A Fighting Chance
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.
Unsettled
The truth is, I haven't slept more than an hour at a time these last few days. My mind is running wild. I can't keep my eyes dry and my heart aches in a way I haven't felt since my first day on the ground in Haiti. I don't know what to do. I'm lost and trying to make sense of the situation. The people I care so much about and to whom I have dedicated my life to helping, are dying before me. This feeling of helplessness is more than I can bare. I don't want to be here anymore. I want to be there with them. I want to be where they are dying, just to be present and to apologize. I want to hold them and tell them that it's ok. I want them to know that their lives matter to me. I want them to know that they won't be forgotten.
I'm sitting here on campus, waist deep in my medical school studies while my mind is traversing the dirty streets of Port-au-Prince, counting the dead bodies that cover the ground, breathing in the air of absolute destruction, hearing the cries of the children at the side of their lifeless parents and the prayers of the mothers and fathers with their arms reaching out to the sky, desperate for something, anything to help them.
I was on the phone with a friend and colleague in the Dominican Republic when the earthquake started. He told me that the ground was shaking. I told him to look out the window and see if a big truck was passing by, if that could've been the cause of his little house shaking. I knew it wasn't a truck, when he began yelling for help, exclaiming that his roof was caving in. I told him to get out of the house and away from the building to hold on to something.
Two hours later, I heard the news that Haiti had been hit by the largest earthquake it has seen in the last 200 years. My heart sunk and my throat closed. The email read that several of the homes of people I knew well and worked heavily with, were demolished. It's a nightmare and I don't know who I can talk to about it. Everywhere I turn, people are apologizing, offering to help in whatever way they can and asking me if I'm ok. Of course I'm not ok. When that earthquake hit, I couldn't breathe. I felt as though I was in the center of it and that everything around me was falling apart. I wanted to be there when it happened. I wanted to suffer with the ones I cared about. I want to be there right now. I want to do everything that I can.
They need more people who speak Creole. They need more people who know their way around. It's so hard for me to sit here and think to myself that it's best to wait and that little good can come from me being there right now. So I've decided to do everything I can while I'm here. Working with President Ruth Simmons and several doctors and officials at Brown, we've formed the Brown Haiti Crisis Response Committee to design ways of raising money that can be immediately applied to address the most urgent needs of those in Haiti. I'm also working with Dr. Flannigan and several members of the Global Health Initiative at Brown as a leader in the Haiti working group aimed at creating long-term educational and professional relationships between the Brown Medical Schools and both government and non-governmental organizations in Haiti.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Life On The Stateside
It’s been 2 months since I’ve been back to the states. I’ve settled into my new apartment on the east side of Providence just up the road from the Starbucks I used to study and work at during my undergrad. I’m living in a beautiful 3-bedroom apartment with two fellow med students who I went to Brown undergrad with. I don’t have a car, so I walk everywhere—to the grocery store, post office, bank, downtown… I took on a summer job working back in the med school setting up biology, physiology and anatomy labs to cover my rent and utilities. All those hours spent and essays written for med school financial aid paid off. It costs $62,000/year to attend Brown Medical School. They offered me $30,000/year in scholarship money and the remaining $32,000 is covered by loans that Brown received for me. I am extremely grateful for their generous support but won’t see any of that until September. For the time being, I’m on my own, working in the labs and doing odd-end jobs to cover summer living expenses.
I’ve been lucky enough to inherit nearly all of the books I’ll be needing for first semester and have spent the last two months getting ahead and preparing for anatomy and histology. It was important to me to get back into the “academic mode” after a year of practical on-the-ground work in Haiti. Talking with friends and deans, I was told that my work in Haiti will surely pay off in the classroom, especially in the sections on infectious disease and pharmacology.
I made it back to the states just in time for my 5th year high school reunion, which I was excited to attend, and had a great time seeing old familiar faces. I was awarded the alumni community service award during reunion weekend. My school made a modest donation to Pwoje Espwa on my behalf and gave me one of those huge metal bowls with my name etc. engraved on it. It was a great welcome back to the country considering how the reverse culture shock I was experiencing, nearly isolated me from all of my friends and family. I didn’t want to see, talk to or even acknowledge anyone associated with my life before Haiti. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel much guilt about being back but I was overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia for Haiti that I couldn’t quite understand. My year away was by far one of the most difficult experiences of my life. I fought off depression, frustration, anger and feelings of hopelessness almost daily. I often prayed that the days pass faster and that I’d be back home with my family. Now that I’m back, I miss all the things I thought I hated. I miss waking up in the morning and not being bombarded by 20 kids yelling my name asking for things or Sonya in the kitchen boiling eggs for breakfast, or the strong Haitian coffee made the night before and the 12 cups/day I would drink. There are few things that I don’t miss. I don’t miss the spiders! I don’t miss the incessant sicknesses and the merciless mosquitos!
About a month ago, I was asked by the editor of the Brown Medical School Magazine if I would write a piece on my time in Haiti. After nearly a dozen drafts and weeks of editing, I finally came up with a piece that I’m content with. There was a 1,000 word limit on the piece but they seem to be ok with me using the 1,400 word final piece. The process of trying to sum up my year in Haiti in just 1,000 words was more stressful than it was anything.
I will try to keep weekly updates going on the blog about what I’m doing, especially in relation to Haiti and welcome any emails from you. You can contact me at either willinhaiti@gmail.com or wilfredo_perez@brown.edu
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