Field clinic in the mountains

On Saturday, we were happy to be able to do a field clinic in Soliette, Fonds-Verrettes. There is a huge need for health care in this area. Fonds-Verrettes is a commune of 111 sq. miles with 47,738 people. The town is about 1 1/2 hours drive south of the IFM base in Fond Parisien. People live in the mountains that surround the town, up to 4 hours hike away.

Last Sunday, we delivered 70 invitation letters to the churches all over the commune of Fonds-Verrettes, announcing the field clinic. We hand delivered many of them on Sunday morning, making brief visits to the churches.

The girls spent a lot of time getting the meds packaged and ready.

When we got there, over 300 people were waiting for us in the church. Saturday is a big market day, meaning that any other day of the week there would have probably been twice as many people.

Carrying in the meds, and setting up.

Hanging up the scales to weigh the children. 

 Moise taking the names, addresses, and phone numbers and writing them on the patient charts. Its quite a talent because a lot of mountain people go by several different names.

Dr. Alexis and Dr. Mendel Thelusmé (Dr. Jolius'friend) looking over the list of meds that we brought along. 

Nurse Villaine taking vital signs

Dr. Alexis examining a patient.

Dr. Jolius Thelusmé examining a child.

People waiting.

Levi taking patient information and writing it on the patient's chart for the eye tech.

Zann, the eye tech doing an eye exam.

Jeana filling prescription.

Chricimene making our lunch.

Nurse Esther taking blood pressure.

Nurse Villaine taking blood pressure. For those of you that know Joe that works at the mission, Villaine is Joe's wife's sister.

I am running the scales. 

Michelle, our head lab tech doing lab tests.

Gesnert helped in the lab.

Caitlyn filling a prescription. 

The pharmacy. 

Carlos helping in the pharmacy. He also handed out "Flanbo Verite A" (Flame of Truth). 

This is a bimonthly booklet that we get from Christian Aid Ministries.

Celimene helped move patients, send patients to the lab, etc.

This little guy has kwashiorkor. This type of malnutrition causes swelling and is very dangerous. A leaf doctor told the grandma that there is a medicine that will make him vomit the water out of his body to reduce the swelling. The lady in the picture is his grandma, and the girl is his aunt. He is 13 months old and already has a younger sibling. We gave him Herbalife, MannaPacs, and medicines. We tried to make it real clear that they need to bring him down to Fond Parisien to the Children's Home for Mary Ann to nurse back to health.

There was an 8 month old baby that weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces. His mom was really young. We also gave her some MannaPacs and Herbalife, and tried to convince her to bring the baby down to the Children's Home.

This cute little girl waiting with her mom.

This lady's blood pressure was 240 / 140.  

Dr. Jolius listening to this grandma. It's hard to imagine how hard her life has been. 

In all we saw 344 patients. There are no clinics close to this area. They either have to go about 2 hours drive up the mountain or about 1 1/2 hours drive down to Fond Parisien to see a doctor. Many do, but many can't. We had people that walked 3 hours from up in the mountains to come down to the field clinic. 

 Here are some pictures of children that Joanna took:

Thank you for your prayers and financial support. 

     -Mike

To see Carlos' pictures of the field clinic on IFM's Facebook page,  click here.