Friends of the Orphans - Haiti Initiative

Friends of St. Damien Pediatric Hospital Fund, Haiti

Less than 1,000 miles from the U.S., Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Poor sanitation and widespread poverty have led to young children being 15 times more likely to die from diarrhea and pneumonia than HIV/AIDS.
Nearly 10% of the children die before their fifth birthday, largely of treatable illnesses.
One out of four children is moderately to severely malnourished and 138,000 children die of preventable diseases each year.
Plagued by both political instability and natural disasters, food costs have tripled in the last year, while most people are unemployed and survive on less than $2 a day.
HIV/AIDS has left an estimated 200,000 orphans.
On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated the country. There were an estimated 200,000 deaths, 300,000 injuries, and 1.5 million people left homeless. (Read more.)
The current Cholera epidemic has caused 3,000 deaths. An estimated 40,000 people are infected, and it is estimated 400,000 people will become sick before there is a decline. (Read more.)

Friends of the Orphans is helping transform thousands of lives through the support of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos/Nos Petit Frères et Soeurs (NPH/NPFS Spanish and French for “Our Little Brothers and Sisters”). Since 1987 NPH/NPFS has operated the St. Helene home in Haiti for orphaned and abandoned children. While the initial goal of NPFS was to build this permanent home, the large number of children dying from treatable illnesses showed a desperate need for a hospital that could treat chronic and other debilitating pediatric illnesses. Funded through private contributions to NPH worldwide, St. Damien provides high quality medical treatment for disadvantaged and sick children in Haiti. More than half of all patients are admitted for an infectious disease such as tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV while 25% are admitted for non-infectious diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and kidney infection. Most patients admitted are also malnourished. The outpatient clinic treats 100 children daily, for acute, parasitic, and bacterial infections. In specialized clinics, chronic conditions such as sickle cell anaemia, congenital heart diseases (CHD), tuberculosis and cancer are treated for months or years if needed. St. Damien Pediatric Hospital and associated public health programs of NPFS reach over 80,000 children annually.

Working with Father Rick Frechette, CP, D.O., who is the Regional Director of the Caribbean for NPH International and serves on the Health Services team, Friends of the Orphans has created the Friends of the St. Damien Pediatric Hospital Fund to support the budget necessary to run the hospital and provide support programs to the Haitian community. In a country where 1/3 of the population is under 14-years-old, improvements in pediatric health are a vital and necessary requirement towards Haiti's economic, social, and political development. St. Damien Pediatric Hospital offers children a place to receive first rate quality and dignified healthcare regardless of their social level.

Programs

ST. DAMIEN MEDICAL CENTER

• Pediatric Hospital
The pediatric hospital outpatient clinic attends to 100 children daily. There is a symbolic fee of 10¢ for services, but it is often waived because most people cannot afford it. If the child is admitted to the Emergency Room, the parent is required to stay with the child 24/7 and the average stay is three days. If a child is admitted to a ward, infectious or noninfectious, then the parent can visit and does not have to stay overnight. The average stay for a child is two months and the hospital currently has 120 beds including an 18-bed emergency unit, 10-bed pediatric intensive care unit and a 9-bed cancer center.

The hospital has emergency, surgery and cancer wards as well as outpatient waiting room and examination rooms, a pharmacy, radiology, critical care, an isolation room, infectious and non-infectious wards, and a dental clinic.

Laboratory: The hospital’s laboratory has the capacity to do many essential tests, including malaria blood smears, HIV, and sickle cell. On average, about 1,500 hematologic exams and more than 4,000 bacteriological exams are conducted monthly.

Radiology: The hospital has a digital x-ray which performs 400 x-rays a month and is capable of sending images across the internet to an external radiologist in the US or Europe. More than 90% of all x-rays are pictures of the chest to exam the lungs for respiratory tract infections.

Pharmacy: The pharmacy is responsible for supplying drugs, medical supplies, and items to the patient rooms and out-patients. While some essential drugs are produced and purchased in Haiti, most medications and supplies are imported from Action Medeor, a specialist supplier for charities from Germany. A system has been established in the past few years where the hospital pharmacy team receives supervision, support and training from an international volunteer pharmacist from Germany through communication and annual visits.

Surgery: St. Damien surgery is composed of two surgical suites, a recovery room, prep room, and a sterile changing area. The staff of 15 includes two physicians, four nurses, two nursing assistants, and three technicians. Around 360 surgeries are performed yearly and include colostomy, hypospadias, hydrochephelus, hernias, and oncology referrals. There are also visiting teams of surgeons who come four times a year, and perform an additional 160 surgeries annually. Patients are referred to surgery from the general clinic and the emergency room. Non-emergency surgery is performed Monday through Friday, while emergency surgery is performed seven days a week.

Pediatric Oncology/Hematology: The St. Damien Pediatric Oncology/Hematology Center has been in existence since 2006, and has treated over 140 patients. The center treats both solid tumor and blood cancers (such as leukemia, lymphoma, retinoblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, osteosarcoma, Wilms, Hepatoblastoma, Neuroblastoma, ovarian, testicular) as well as hematological diseases (such as aplastic anemia). Chemotherapy and surgical interventions are provided on-site and radiation therapy is provided in the Dominican Republic. The Center works closely with St. Jude’s Medical Center in the US, and is an international affiliate.

Tuberculosis: The TB Program at St. Damien treats both Pulmonary TB and Extra-Pulmonary TB and is for children 14 years and younger. Those under six receive six months of treatment while those between 6-14 years of age receive eight months. Both age groups start with an initial two month in-patient treatment and medications are provided by Haiti’s National Program Against TB (PNLT in French).

Malnutrition: St. Damien Malnutrition Program started two years ago, in order to combat Haiti’s alarmingly high rate of malnutrition (17,500 children under the age of five were reported to be acutely malnourished before the January 12, 2010 earthquake). The program runs for six weeks, and provides patients with food packages consisting of a combination of F100 (a dried highenergy milk that is fortified with a mix of vitamins and minerals) and Plumpy Nut (a combination of peanut paste, vegetable oil, powdered milk, powdered sugar, vitamins, and minerals). Children are followed through weekly consultations to monitor progress.

Maternity: St. Damien High Risk Maternity Program served 4,799 mothers in 2011. The program has a staff of 56, including eight obstetrician/gynocologists, seven anethesiologists, and 12 midwives. There is close collaboration with the St. Luke Manitane Pre-natal clinic and St. Luke Outreach Clinics in the slums.

Neonatology: St. Damien Neonatology program treats our highest risk newborns, and served 640 children in 2011.

Public Health: provides standard pediatrics vaccinations to all hospital patients, and provides out-patient public health programs (including HIV) to over 20,000 people yearly.