HOPE Working to Reduce Widespread Suffering from Cholera

At the request of the Haiti Minister of Health, Project HOPE has responded swiftly to the country’s cholera outbreak.

Yesterday, an additional six HOPE volunteers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston arrived at L’hopital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, located in the Artibonite River Valley, the ground-zero for the cholera epidemic with a population of 300,000.

The good news is that these HOPE volunteers, when they arrived, found fewer patients being admitted with cholera. That said, they are now treating 60 cholera patients in a facility that normally has 80 beds -- and is still caring for patients with long-term injuries from the January earthquake.

In addition to patient care, the HOPE volunteers will train area residents, throughout the Artibonite Valley, how to prevent the spread of the disease with good personal hygiene and proper food handling, as well as clean water usage. Even with the current numbers of cholera patients at L’hopital Albert Schweitzer, it is still early in the disease outbreak process.

In keeping with our intent to do all we can to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, the spread of the disease, HOPE will be sending two additional volunteer physicians from the MGH to Haiti on Thursday, one a pediatric and the other an adult specialist in infectious diseases.

For the health of the Haitian people, we are working hard to reduce widespread suffering and death from the cholera outbreak. Your support means much to HOPE. I look forward to sharing my next update with you.

John

HOPE Delivering Humanitarian Assistance in Haiti

The world’s attention is once again focused on Haiti. In the face of this new crisis, Project HOPE is on the scene delivering humanitarian assistance.

The Haiti Ministry of Health contacted Project HOPE’s in-country office last week to inform us about a rapid increase in the number of reported cholera cases in the country’s Northwest region known as the Artibonite River Valley.

Our emergency response was set in action. Project HOPE soon delivered its first shipment of relief supplies to the city of Desdunes, a city in the Artibonite River Valley with a population of 40,000.

The relief supplies, which included antibacterial hand gels, Pedialyte oral rehydration, Life Straw water purifiers and bottled drinking water, were gratefully received by the Ministry of Health staff in Desdunes.

The desperate need for something as basic as antibacterial hand gel was experienced, in person, by a member of the HOPE staff. After the delivery of humanitarian supplies, our team was on its way back to Port-au-Prince. When they stopped for food along the road, the store clerk came up and said, “Please save my life. Do you have any hand gel?”

Our staff member returned to the truck and collected his three personal bottles of hand gel and gave them to the clerk, who then gave two of the bottles to a young boy and girl. It was then that he understood how worried the people in the affected area are about the outbreak.

In addition to supplies, a six-person team of HOPE volunteers from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston arrived this morning at L'hopital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles to augment our team of volunteers, already at the hospital, engaged in the care of cholera patients. Dr. Larry Ronan, a long-time HOPE volunteer, leads the MGH physicians and nurses.

As more details become available from our team in Haiti, I look forward to sharing them with you, through my blog and on the HOPE website.

Again, thank you for your support of HOPE’s emergency relief efforts for the many Haitians now in need.

A Hospital at the Heart of a City's Rebirth

Two weeks after the Sichuan Province earthquake in May 2008, Project HOPE Chairman Dr. Charles Sanders and I visited Du Jiang Yan City, located less than an hour from the quake’s epicenter, and saw firsthand the tragic devastation.

A little more than one year after the quake, I returned to Du Jiang Yan City. Rubble from the destruction was still visible. I toured a temporary hospital still brimming with patients from the local community. But I also saw the roots of the reconstruction beginning to emerge.

Now, as the van I ride in approaches Du Jiang Yan City, I see a new, modern, vibrant and blossoming city. The scars from the terrible quake virtually erased. And at the heart of the city’s rebirth is the beautiful Du Jiang Yan People’s Hospital.

Built on 100 acres, the 650-bed hospital was recognized by China’s President Hu as one of the best hospitals in China. The facility was even awarded a prestigious architecture award given to only a handful of buildings throughout China.

The Du Jiang Yan Hospital is also home to a state-of-the art rehabilitation center nearly 100 percent furnished by Project HOPE. I met three inspirational patients in the unit, who suffered injuries as a result of the 2008 earthquake – two of the patients were injured the day of the quake and the third was a young volunteer who was injured in a mudslide, while assisting earthquake survivors. All three were extremely optimistic about their futures and grateful for the care they are receiving at the center.

Not available prior to the earthquake, the rehabilitation medicine center now benefits the Du Jiang Yan community and region at large. I talked to two men in the center who were rehabilitating from stroke. In both cases, the strokes may have been caused by hypertension – a chronic condition that is a growing concern throughout China. In addition, the center is combining Western medicine with traditional Chinese medicine to enhance patient outcomes.

The Pediatric Unit was my next stop on the hospital tour. Eight doctors and nurses on staff were graduates of HOPE’s Rural Fellow Training Program or trainees from the Abbott Fund Institute of Nutrition Science. I met two Fellows who beamed as they shared stories about training and how it helped them improve the care they provided to children.

As I left the Unit, I was overwhelmed by a show-stopping smile of a seven-year-old girl. The fever and aches caused by the flu could not stifle her smile. Her infectious optimism demonstrated for me the tremendous resiliency of the people of Sichuan Province.

To assist in the rebuilding efforts of Du Jiang Yan City, not long ago, Shanghai government officials provided more than $1 billion. Recently, as Shanghai officials left Du Jiang Yan City after their last reconstruction meeting, City residents lined the streets for 10 miles waving their hands in an expression of gratitude. They truly have much to be thankful for.

Long-term Sustainability Witnessed in Nicaragua

While I saw first-hand the long-term impact of our pneumococcal vaccine program among Nicaraguans in the Managua region, a team of Project HOPE volunteer doctors and nurses were making a difference in the lives of hundreds of Nicaraguans in the remote coastal town of Bluefields.

For ten days, beginning September 16th, HOPE volunteers, along with Navy medical personnel on board the USS Iwo Jima, have provided health care and health education to Nicaraguans in need, as part of the 2010 Continuing Promise humanitarian outreach program. (I hope you have been following the daily blogs from our volunteers on the ship.)

This 2010 Continuing Promise mission is the twentieth humanitarian assistance mission that HOPE has partnered with the U.S. Navy since the response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2005. Since then, HOPE volunteers, Navy medical personnel and representatives from other NGOs have cared for more than 550,000 patients and provided health education to more than 115,000 doctors, nurses and other health care workers.

In Bluefields, HOPE volunteers have seen more than 600 patients daily and provided health education classes on topics such as diabetes, hypertension, women’s health and basic hygiene to more than 300 people each day.

Anne Borden, MPH, RN, is one HOPE volunteer who is teaching patients to better manage their chronic diseases. Anne tells her students that the burden of a chronic disease, such as diabetes, may be heavy. But the knowledge gained by learning to live with the disease stays with you forever and helps you to better manage it.

Back in Managua, I had the pleasure of meeting the U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, Robert Callahan. Ambassador Callahan has visited the USS Iwo Jima and witnessed the truly heroic humanitarian work of the HOPE volunteers and U.S. Navy personnel. I listened as the Ambassador and USAID Director for Nicaragua, Norma Parker, shared their support of a healthier Nicaragua through humanitarian aid initiatives.

Humanitarian aid is often believed to be only related to disaster relief efforts. Yet, this aid comes in many forms, as I have mentioned. A common thread in the humanitarian aid programs HOPE delivers, whether it be in response to a natural disaster or a pressing health challenge – is long-term sustainability. This is being seen in Nicaragua today.

John

Informing Nicaraguans About Pneumococcal Vaccine

I was an unexpected visitor in the homes of Nicaraguans, throughout the country, last Friday morning.

As a guest on the top-rated Nicaraguan morning show Primer Plano with its host, Adolfo Pastran, my message about Project HOPE was beamed into households across the country.

The focus of my message was to let Nicaraguans know about the pneumococcal vaccine program HOPE is conducting with the Nicaragua Ministry of Health, thanks to the generous donation of 1 million doses of vaccine from Merck & Co., Inc.

Communication is a critical element of any public health campaign. While ensuring that 1 million Nicaraguans will not develop pneumonia – Latin America’s #1 killer – is a monumental task, it will not achieve its objective without awareness of the program.

After my live 30-minute interview on Primer Plano, I returned to my hotel for a media briefing with several Nicaraguan television, newspaper and magazine reporters. I spent more than two hours with the reporters enlisting their support to make sure as many Nicaraguans as possible become aware of this vaccine initiative.

One reporter with whom I met with was Oscar Miranda Uriarte, perhaps the most recognized media personality in Nicaragua. Oscar said that 44 years ago he stood on the dock at Corinto reporting as a young journalist on the visit of the SS HOPE to Nicaragua. He told me that on that first historic visit, many Nicaraguans thought the SS HOPE belonged to the country’s First Family because at the time the First Lady’s name was Hope.

I also met with a young magazine journalist, Esther Pirado, from NICASALUD, the country’s organization of NGOs of which HOPE is a member. Esther is the daughter a nurse who received training from the American volunteer nurses aboard the SS HOPE in 1966. To this day, Esther’s mother, as well as the other Nicaraguan doctors and nurses who received training on the SS HOPE, still come together to share stories about their life-changing experience.

One observation made in my blogs from Honduras, holds true in Nicaragua as well. And that is the high caliber of the HOPE staff. Though smaller in number than their Honduras colleagues, the Nicaragua HOPE staff is accomplishing great things with its limited resources.

Under the direction of Dr. Mario Ortega, who has been among the leadership of HOPE Nicaragua for 15 years, the organization is well respected among the country’s health care leaders. So respected are HOPE and Dr. Ortega, that he has been asked to join a Pan American Health Organization team to conduct a countrywide assessment of vaccination programs. This is an immense honor for Dr. Ortega and HOPE.

HOPE’s objective in Nicaragua is to provide sustainable health care programs to address the country’s most pressing health care challenges. With the expertise of the HOPE staff, and with the support of the Nicaragua Ministry of Health, there are no limits to what we can accomplish together.

John

HOPE in Nicaragua

Throw a stone any direction in Nicaragua, and it will land on a health care challenge. Dr. Jorge Luis Prosperi, who heads the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) here in Managua, used these words to describe the health status of the country.

Dr. Prosperi has a valid point. Suicide among Nicaragua’s young people is a growing concern. Accidents on the roads are increasingly taking more lives. Pneumonia is the #1 killer in Latin American and a leading cause of death in Nicaragua.

Despite these and other alarming trends, I would offer a slight variation on Dr. Prosperi’s observation. Throw a stone any direction in Nicaragua, and it will fall on someone trying to address a major health care problem.

I will now demonstrate what I mean.

Throughout the past 44 years, Project HOPE has been addressing health care challenges in Nicaragua. Recently, HOPE and the Nicaragua Minister of Health launched an aggressive countrywide immunization program to protect adults over age 50 from the pneumococcal organism, a leading cause of pneumonia. The program is made possible by a generous donation of 1 million doses of the vaccine PNEUMOVAX from Merck & Co., Inc.

Today, Eduardo Cortes, Managing Director of Merck’s Central America and Dominican Republic Region, joined me in going to the homes of three special people in Granada, an hour’s drive from Managua, who had received the PNEUMOVAX vaccine – Jose, Isabel and Juanita. Isabel told Eduardo that he and his Merck colleagues have earned “a special place in heaven” because of this donation.

PAHO is another example of an organization marshalling its resources to make a difference in Nicaragua. Its health workers, under the leadership of Dr. Prosperi, can be found in each of the 17 Nicaraguan states, developing and implementing programs to improve the health of women and children.

Finally, Dr. Sonia Castro, Nicaragua’s Minister of Health, is leading a full-court press to address her country’s most pressing health needs. Don’t be fooled by her ever-present smile. Behind Dr. Castro’s smile is a passionate and determined leader who is driving the health care agenda of the country’s President, Daniel Ortega. Top on her list of priorities are:

• Emphasizing “human warmth” in health care
• Making access to health care a right for all Nicaraguans
• Improving health care to women and children

You can see there are a number of health professionals, as well as organizations, standing shoulder to shoulder addressing Nicaragua’s health challenges. And HOPE is one of them, looking forward to continuing its 44-year legacy in the country for years to come.

Check back for more tomorrow,

John