Saturday August 6th Update

My Jesus I Love THEE

“My Jesus I love thee. I will serve thee where ever you lead me. I will clean up vomit and empty buckets of diarrhea. I will medicate (even if they spit it back in my face) the patients you send my way. I will strive to display you to all the people I come into contact with. For you have died to set me free and to place eternal life in me.”

Greetings from Haiti! It is so good to be back in this country once again. I thought that I would write a little update on what is going on down here and give you all that are planning on coming to help out a little snap shot on how things are done and what to expect.

Since the last update we have not had very many patients come in. Right now we have one patient in the fish tank (observation room) where we keep patients when they first come in to see how bad they are and if they can be treated and released or if they need to be admitted for extended treatment. We also have boy who is around 12 years old who I admitted this morning. We have a few other patients that we have treated and released the past several shifts. Yesterday we got the CTC put back together and all the plastic put back up around it that we had taken down in preparation of the storm that did not come. 

Yesterday I went out to the CTC to see if I could be of any help and there was a little boy in there that would not take his medicine so I helped out the nurse on duty and put the medicine in a syringe and tried to force it to the back of his mouth. Well, it did not go so well and he ended up spitting some of it into my face. After a couple more attempts we were able to get it into him.

How things work!?!?!

We have three team leaders, one for each shift. We work in 8 hr shifts. You work every other shift three times then you are off for 4 shifts then you start over again. Right now we have the shift leader and one other helper on duty at a time. Each shift has its own set of chores it is supposed to do as well as taking care of the patients. 

What is involved in taking care of the patients you may wonder? One of the biggest concerns (on the physical side) we have for each of our patients is that they get/stay hydrated. To do this we have to estimate as close as possible how much liquids they are getting into their body either by drinking or by I.V. You also have to estimate as close as possible how much fluid is leaving their body by the way of diarrhea, vomit, and urine, thus the need for us to dump the buckets of body fluids. It is also our job to make sure that the I.V.s stay running and that the patient’s drinking bottle gets refilled as soon as it is empty. Of course there is also the initial medication that needs to be done.

Personal experiences

• I was put in the position of a team leader which I was surprised.
• I find it difficult at times to empty the buckets of body fluid (the care givers’ buckets are the worst to empty).
• I was blessed the other day when I discovered that the Haitian gate keepers and the one patient were listening to the Bible on their own accord.
• It has been such a blessing working with other Godly youth.
• We do have fun moments with each other as well as times of singing.

 May each one of us continue to display Christ to all we come in contact with and be good representatives of HIS!

In Christ,

Jesse Sutherland