Plan B: A Day in Dubreil

Travel just to the river crossing and set up clinic there before crossing the river. (Matt walked to the river and said it was running knee high but really swift and lotd of big rocks. ) How does an unscheduled clinic happen? A newly married couple opens up their home, cleans out the front salon, the middle room (bedroom) and rear room (dining) to allow us to use those rooms for the doctors' rooms and pharmacy. They move all of their belongings into their cell phone business next door, take down the curtains between the doorways, sweep and wash the floors just as we arrive. We owe a debt of gratitude to Mr and Mrs Maxime. We'll use their home tomorrow also. So then how do we get the patients? Someone rides up on a bicycle with a bullhorn. Oops it needs batteries and we have none with us. Send him somewhere to buy some then he rides off into the community announcing that we are there and accepting patients. Then within an hour we have a full clinic with a line of people waiting to register...all dressed in their best clothes, of course!! We had a surprise visit from Berthony who was living nearby. We first saw him almost two years ago when he appeared to be in liver failure at the age of 20. His story is long, and includes a month's stay at a questionable hospital where they wanted to remove both of his kidneys. Now it seems he has chronic kidney stones and an infection but he was looking much much better and we were able to treat him. It was a good clinic day with over 100 patients seen. It should have been more but considering we didn't have a plan at 6 AM, we consider this pretty successful. The Haitian nurse, Syly, is working out very well as she works in pharmacy giving med instructions to people. She also loves to give out bagay and has fun doing it!!