"Hands on Haiti" Response Effort (2/8/10 - 2/12/10)
POSTED ON Feb 10, 2010 / UPDATED ON Jan 27, 2011
Dr. Mary Wierusz of Seattle and a young earthquake patient at COTN's clinic in Barahona
Read HAITI CHILDREN"S STORIES from the field here.
FRIDAY - February 12, 2010 (8:37pm)
* * TOP THREE MOST URGENT NEEDS * *
(List will be updated accordingly or as needs are met. Please check back often.)
- "To reach into Haiti we desperately need TWO 15-PASSENGER VANS ($19K each) and a TRUCK ($35K)," pleads COTN founder, Chris Clark, currently on the ground in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. To donate to this urgently needed fund CLICK HERE.
- "Let's Eat" SmilePacks and other urgently needed supplies posted to our Haiti Needs List.
- We are also in urgent need of a FLIGHT SERVICE willing to fly much-needed supplies into Barahona in the Dominican Republic. Please contact Dave Schertzer at daveschertzer@cotni.org.
FRIDAY - February 12, 2010 (8:37pm)
One month ago today, Haiti was devastated by an earthquake—killing and injuring hundreds of thousands. With our established ministry center just across the border in neighboring Dominican Republic (DR), we were able to launch an immediate response effort. With your support and quick action, the last month has been nothing short of miraculous:
- 48 hours post-quake, our Dominican staff and board had surveyed the needs in southern DR and were assessing the situation in Haiti. They were also meeting with our partners to establish a distribution plan for the food and supplies from our Dominican storehouses. All COTN countries began prayer vigils for the victims.
- 4 days post-quake, Children of the Nations sent 100+ medical personnel (surgeons, doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, translators, drivers, coordinators, etc.) from the USA and the DR to serve in Jimani, a Dominican border town where thousands of injured earthquake patients were pouring in each day. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in supplies and cash donations began to pour in including the use of private jets and planes to transport needed supplies.
- 7 days post-quake, our volunteers and staff were manning the primary administrative functions at the Good Samaritian Hospital while our bus was transporting recovering patients back across the border.
- 12 days post-quake, two Black Hawk helicopters from Puerto Rico transported 22 injured children and their parents to our clinic in Barahona where US and Dominican health professionals began 24/7 compassionate care.
Today, one month post-quake:
- We are providing specialized medical care for 13 children identified as most-critical and transferred to our medical clinic in Barahona, Dominican Republic, while making final preparations and contracts to provide a rehabilitation center for up to 50 children and their families.
- Our Dominican staff and 200+ Dominican pastors are heading up an outreach to Haiti, partnering with 150+ Haitian pastors to provide food and supplies to children and their families.
- We are providing Trauma Counseling training, both in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, working with 200+ professionals who will, in turn, be able to minister to their communities. Daily radio programs will be aired to help the greater Port-au-Prince area begin the emotional journey back to normalcy.
- We are finalizing plans to establish a temporary rehabilitation clinic just across the border in Haiti to provide outpatient and follow-up medical care.
With your help, SO MANY children—like Stanley, Antoine, Saudine, and Sylvain and many others—are now safe and beginning to heal.
Thank you for playing such a vital role this past month and walking with us as we move forward. While the journey looks daunting, we know God has gone before us to provide.
Continuing to pray for Haiti,
Chris Clark
COTN Founder and CEO
FRIDAY - February 12, 2010 (4:37pm)
COTN’s ministry site in Barahona, Dominican Republic continues to welcome medical teams who are arriving from the States to help care for the Haitian children who are in our medical clinic. Today, a new team arrived from the Seattle area: two nurses, a first-year residency student, a pediatric nurse practitioner, a wound nurse, and a pediatric physical therapist. Tomorrow a team from North Dakota and Minnesota will be flying home after serving for five days in the clinic—changing dressings and checking on the recent skin grafts, as well as helping a few people in the Barahona community.
This Sunday, a team of counselors is also set to arrive. Three of them will remain in Barahona at COTN’s clinic to work with the children and families who are there. The rest of the team will travel into Haiti for several days for a counseling conference to train people from churches in Haiti and other Haitian counselors and therapists on how to best respond and provide ways for people to cope with the tragedy of the earthquake. COTN’s vision is train people so they can counsel their fellow Haitians as opposed to Americans being the primary counselors.
This week, Ryan Nichols from Seattle, Washington, who is serving as the COTN team host in the Dominican Republic, will also be traveling into Haiti with Haitian pastors with whom COTN has been partnering. He will help assess the needs that COTN can continue to help with—such as supplies and food—as well as get a better understanding of possible places for safe shelter and housing for Haitians who have lost everything.
COTN–DR staff member Malou Faublas has traveled to Santo Domingo today to bring back two of the three children from COTN’s medical clinic in Barahona who were sent to the hospital there more than a week ago with the need of more intense surgeries and care. One child will remain as more surgeries are still needed. Ryan Nichols said that Malou is due back this evening with the children, who will continue to recover at COTN’s medical clinic.
MONDAY - February 8, 2010 (12:37pm)
The COTN medical team made up of those from Central Florida and Seattle is on a plane home today, after serving in the Dominican Republic with Children of the Nations for 12 days. “They were amazing, they did a great job,” said Ryan Nichols, who is serving as a COTN team host in the Dominican Republic for about a month. “You couldn’t even tell a difference between the Florida and Seattle teams—everyone blended together. Dr. Mary Wierusz and Dr. Elizabeth Hutchinson did a great job leading everyone. The surgeons were great, they were able to do extra surgeries and everybody really bonded with the kids.”
Though Ryan says the children in COTN’s medical clinic were sad to see the team go, he says they are doing so much better compared to when they first arrived. “Its great to see the transition come about and see the kid get better—they have so much energy now,” he said. “It's amazing.”
Just two days ago, another COTN medical team arrived from North Dakota and Minnesota. Made up of one doctor, two nurses and two physical therapists, they will continue to care for and treat the children in COTN’s clinic. The focus, however, will be physical therapy for the kids who are ready for it—learning how to function without certain limbs or exercising the muscles that are injured or weak. They have already started on the clinic patio and in the nearby COTN office conference room. “They’ll do the physical therapy pretty much wherever there is room,” Ryan said. For the three children who had skin graft procedures done last week, they all still have a few days before they’re able to get up and walk around, but they will soon join the others in the physical therapy. Though these two physical therapists are the first to help the children here in Barahona, others will be coming on more teams in the future.
Please donate to COTN's "Hands on Haiti" Response Effort TODAY! Your help is still needed for immediate relief and long-term support.
Click here to read previous posts (2/4/10 and earlier).