On Mother’s Day in Haiti, the May 26th, 2019, the St. Luke Hospital organized a large educational event for Breast Cancer Screening, with more than 200 women having the opportunity to participate. This may not seem like much of a mother's day present to most, but access to healthcare and health education is one of THE most important tools we can provide our patients at St. Luke. In Haiti, most breast cancer patients present at such advanced stages that even modern therapies offer only modest survival benefits, a sad fact that is all too real for doctors and nurses at the hospital. As for incidence and survival rates for patients with breast cancer, Haiti may have the least amount of data available in all of the Western Hemisphere (1).
Read MoreTaicha, Tenebrae, and Corpus Christi
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Dear Family and Friends,
I don't know if you have ever seen a child without a face.
The question is not rhetorical.
Childhood cancers have slowly disfigured and then slowly killed too many children, too often, in history.
Especially in impoverished countries where access to care is very limited, this is not ancient history, but all too recent.
Third Edition of Haitian Acute and Emergency Care Conference
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On the 26th and 27th of April 2019, the St. Luke Foundation successfully held their third international conference on Acute and Emergency Care at the St. Luke Hospital. This year the conference focused on the management of trauma cases because trauma patients are common in hospitals while professionals specializing in trauma care are lacking.
Read MoreSaint Sister Philomena
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Sister Philomena was born in between two world wars, and grew up during the great depression in the United States.
She never knew her father, and this was a life long sadness for her. Even when she was very old, she would repeat in a tearful way how difficult this was for her.
He older brother, Lou, was wounded in the second world war, and Sister looked up to him her whole life long, and was close to him and her two sisters.
She was a woman who knew a lot of personal suffering and yet who. like many people saved by love, become more caring, instead of more closed and cynical, by suffering.
Her own childhood gave her a loving heart for children who also lost one or both of their parents, and for children whose situations were poor like hers was.
Read MoreValue for the Disabled
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At St Luke, as our mission is to help the most vulnerable in society, we are proud to have a team of 30 disabled people of all different backgrounds. They work in our tilapia fish farm, raise chickens, grow coffee and moringa, and even sing! We offer them a chance to work according to their abilities, as well as their will. In truth, this kind of work is not always economical from a financial point of view, but from a humanitarian and an eternal point of view, we see it as priceless. Empowering vulnerable people is our true calling, and we enabled our staff to receive a monthly salary and the ability to manage their own lives and families.
Patient Spotlight: Wilner
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Wilner was St. Luke Hospital’s first severe burn victim. Before being admitted to St. Luke Hospital, he was refused care at a different hospital, which claimed he only had about a 30% chance of survival. When this happened, Wilner says he had no hope that his body would ever function again due to the extent of his burns. And when he found out that he was to be taken to St. Luke Hospital for treatment, he was scared because he knew of someone who had been treated at the hospital, but sadly had not survived. He thought he would die too.
Read MorePieta - When Demonstrations Cause Babies to Die
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When I returned to St Damien Hospital at about 5pm yesterday afternoon, after spending the day buying medicines for our hospitals, there was a woman in the hallway holding a small child, and I sensed something was very wrong.
She was not crying, but her face revealed a restrained panic.
Her one year old daughter, while seemingly asleep in her arms, was, to my eye, lifeless.
The child was dead, and this poor mother could not accept it.
This is the kind of thing that happens when roads are blocked with violence, when hatred rules the streets, when mothers are afraid to risk the roads with their sick children.
Read MoreWorld Day of the Sick, February 11
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February 11, World Day of the Sick, was first instituted in May 1992 by Pope John Paul II. At our St. Luke Hospital, we celebrate this holiday every year. This day is an opportunity to pay special attention to the condition of the sick, and, more generally, to give us the opportunity to show how much those who suffer are valued in our eyes.
Read MoreIn Remembrance of Jephte Lorin, a St. Luke Student
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Jephte Lorin was born on March 15, 1996. In 2016, he was part of the first class, called the Quintessence, to graduation from the Academy for Peace and Justice, the largest school of the St. Luke Foundation. Lorin first entered the school in 2012 when he was beginning his 3rd year of secondary education (in Haiti, secondary school comprised of 7th through 12th grades). He spent four beautiful years amongst our students.
Read MoreThe Fermenting of Wines and Revolutions, Fr. Rick Addresses the Political Situation in Haiti
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Social and political tensions in Haiti have reached their flash points over the past number of months, and we have been living, with more intensity these days, what seems like the dangerous and cynical unraveling of a nation.
The spiral of violence and destruction is both tragic and maddening.
The simply stated reason for all of this is that the cost of living has become impossible,
in a country where it was already hard enough to stay alive.
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