Haiti Health Ministries Suffers Devastating Losses
Former Girard doctor, Jim Wilkins and his wife Sandy have been medical missionaries in Haiti for 11 years. They serve with Haiti Health Ministries which is based in Girard, KS runs the medical clinic at Christianville near Port au Prince. They had just returned from a Christmas vacation in Kansas when the earthquake hit. Having finished a typical day at the clinic they were getting supper together in the kitchen of their second floor apartment. Because their main generator was broken, they had just turned a new little generator on, when the house started to vibrate with increasing magnitude and Sandy thought the generator was exploding. By the time everything was falling out of shelves , she figured out that it was an earthquake. The walls were cracking, ceiling tiles falling, and the floor started to drop. As Sandy was yelling, “Jesus save us”, Jim was urging, “Sandy we have to get out.” When the first trembling stopped they headed to the front door. The staircase had fallen. Then they hurried to the back door, and found a huge hole in the wall which they crawled through. Men nearby working on the broken generator were certain Jim and Sandy had been killed inside but ran to help as the Wilkins came out on the back balcony. The Wilkins jumped the remaining distance to the ground with the men’s help. Their injuries were minimal.
Within an hour many area people with injuries had arrived at the Christianville mission compound where Haiti Health Ministries runs the clinic. They set up a triage area in the guesthouse parking lot allowing only the injured in. In the next 36 hours they worked all but 2 hours, when they attempted to sleep. Horrible lacerations and fractures arrived in large number. 5 died at the compound - mostly children. 1 boy burned badly, 2 young girls paralyzed, 3 babies born –delivered by missionary staff who had never delivered babies before because the doctors and nurses were busy. News reports said that no hospitals were functional initially. All are mostly destroyed except the Argentinian hospital in Port au Prince. Doctor’s Without Borders are working but buildings are damaged.
The Christianville clinic lost its pharmacy and central supply building and it is too unsafe still to enter and try to salvage all the medicines and supplies inside. The compound lost their k through 2 school building as well as the high school and university. Their ancient 100 k generator had already been down and was being rebuilt for the second time in 2 years when the quake hit. They lost all the medical missionary housing including a soon to be finished 4 unit apartment building. The eye clinic lost their apartments and storage area planned to become a day surgery center. The missionaries are thanking God that there were no missionaries killed or seriously hurt. The clinic still does not know the condition of 3 of their employees including 1 Haitian doctor who all live in Port au Prince.
Because of the large number of severely injured patients who arrived, the clinic supplies are now exhausted and patients are being referred to the few hospitals that are open. Haiti Health Ministries are praying that relief doctors will soon arrive.
Because supplies have been exhausted the missionaries are now working on their own survival issues. A disaster plan (that had been non existent) was quickly discussed and is being implemented as of Thursday morning. Orthopedic and general surgeons, anesthetists, and nurses are drastically needed in Port au Prince as well as the supplies to support them and their work..
Haiti Health Ministries is committed to reopening the clinic within the next two weeks and rebuilding. The medical ministry will need a bare minimum of $500,000 to replace housing, medical buildings, supplies and equipment lost as well as pay Haitian employee salaries while the indigenous people with limited ability to pay are treated.
