Latest News

Many of you have heard that Sister Carmelle of Fondwa, Haiti, is very ill. 

On Tuesday, Family Health Ministries learned that Sr. Carmelle is in the ICU at a hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas, being treated for pneumonia. She was recently diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer). 

She is receiving excellent care and is surrounded by many friends including Sr. Claudette and the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth.

Family Health Ministries asks for prayers for Sr. Carmelle’s comfort as the doctors work to manage her pain and decide on a plan to address her health needs.

Look for updates  as we receive them on FHM's prayer request page.  (Most recent news received Saturday, 25 February 2012.)

Third year Duke medical student Kate Wiegert recently returned from Haiti after working on several different research projects. 

With Duke Global Health Institute graduate student Marnie Cooper Priest, Kate made the third of three planned visits with matrons, or midwives in the Fondwa community.  The student project assessed what the midwives had learned in their training sessions and what skills they were applying in their daily work.  Marnie (below left) presented the midwives with a special stretcher to help move mothers in labor down Fondwa's steep mountain paths.

Construction advanced on two FHM project sites in Haiti recently.  Missy Owen, FHM's In-country Manager, took the photos below on Saturday, Feb 2nd, at the Leogane Family Health Center site in Leogane where the Nancy Ferree-Clark Guesthouse is under construction.  Missy also shot the photos below of building materials recently delivered to new Fondwa school site.

LEOGANE
Footings are prepared as the construction workers wait for the seismic-resistant building materials en route from California.  The containers have been pre-inspected to speed their trip through the Panama Canal and onward to Haiti.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012.

We completed our third full day of work at the construction site and clinic.

Today the construction team moved hand-mixed concrete, bucket by bucket, to fill the support beams of the new home in Blanchard. The team has become very good friends with the Haitian work crew. They even took a break to have some fun playing volleyball with the local children.

The clinic team has seen approximate three hundred patients in three days and anticipates finishing around 450 patients. Many children were seen today with stickers, suckers, and crayons being handed out. In the pharmacy about 200 men’s ties were given out with many wives returning home with a gift for a loved one.

Hello from PAP. The weather is absolutely fabulous; although, the house building team members, who hauled concrete all day, probably would not agree. They worked with a Haitian building crew under the hot sun to start the walls of a new home for a family in the Blanchard community.

The Clinic team saw approximately 115 patients today and worked like a well-coordinated team. There are many returning members on this team that bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise. There are three medical providers to see patients and two nurses overseeing the pharmacy. A variety of other team members worked in the lab, took vitals, and did triage. You don’t have to be a medical person to be on a medical team. You just have to have a heart to serve and be able to count to ten. We will have you in the pharmacy to count pills in no time.

On Tuesday, the team will return to Blanchard to continue work in the clinic and on the house.

Tuesday evening we have the pleasure of having Pastor Leon Dorleans (above), Senior Pastor of the Christian Community Church and the partner in FHM’s work in Blanchard to dinner. We look forward to hearing about his dreams for Haiti and how we can continue to make a difference for the people of Haiti. 

-from Kathy Walmer, FHM Executive Director, and team leader with Jan Dunnavant

(team picture to follow when the Internet upload capacity is cooperating again)