Medical care, one of the top priorities of HBHH, cuts across many areas of HBHH activities because medical care encompasses both active treatment as well as preventative actions.
For example, well drilling and water purification projects have a direct link to the health conditions in the village, while providing emergency supplies of food to Fr. Mednell in St. Suzanne creates a nutritional safety need that also has health implications.
By providing both preventative and treatment programs, HBHH has the goal of making the greatest impact possible on the lives of the Haitian people.
Medical Treatment
Unlike medical missions that temporarily supplement the medical resources of a village, the medical clinic in St. Suzanne provides a on-going presence capable of delivering basic diagnostic and treatment services. During 2005 and most of 2006 the clinic was staffed with a nurse and offered a narrow band of prescriptive medicines to the people. However, during the summer of 2006, HBHH significantly upgraded the medical supplies of the clinic and also sponsored the salary of a permanent physician. Shortcomings remain: the clinic does not have a lab technician to perform medical tests nor the reliable electrical supply needed to run the equipment required for those tests. While HBHH has been active in the area of Medical Missions, it has also been very involved in the support of the Medical Clinic located in St. Suzanne and serving the surrounding mountain villages.
Prevention Programs
While some prevention programs, such as wells and purification systems, are obvious approaches, other types of disease prevention actions are less apparent and require education programs. For example, the villagers wash their clothes in the river and then dry the clothes on either the banks of the river or, preferably, on the bushes near the river banks. Drying the clothes on bushes makes common sense since they are off the ground. Unfortunately, insect larvae in the bushes is transmitted to the drying clothes and then to the person wearing them. A simple, but new, technique using clothes lines would stop this spread of disease in its tracks.
Another source of illness can be found in the village houses themselves. While a few villagers live in houses constructed of cement block, the vast majority live in houses constructed by weaving branches between poles and then covering the branches with mud. The floor of these houses is also made of hardened mud. The health issue with this construction approach is that the mud contains parasites that can enter through the skin of the inhabitants, literally while they are sleeping. The challenge is that providing affordable housing to those villagers is a significant undertaking.
Malaria
The rains in Haiti combine with the lack of drainage systems to create pools of standing water, a wonderful breeding ground for mesquitoes who, in turn, often carry malaria. The extent of the malaria problem became apparent during the 2006 medical mission when almost every one of the 1000+ people treated during the mission displayed symptoms of the disease. HBHH is planning to have a volunteer with a civil engineering background visit the villages during the summer of 2007 to see what can be done to improve the runoff of rain water while, at the same time, addressing the problem of soil erosion.