Since March 1998, we have been doing our best to provide medical care for people in the Cazale area.  From that first day, we started a charting system that we still follow.  Every patient is given a number.  They have a index card with the number, name, age, and village that they keep with them.  The nurse can write return appointments on the back of the card as a reminder and an aid for those triaging patients in the morning.  The patients also have a chart with this same number that stays with us here in the filing cabinets.  All vitals, diseases, meds given, and lab results are recorded here.  When the patient gives us their card, we can easily find their chart.  Everyone is recorded.

We started out seeing about 50-60 patients per day.  Though the years, we’ve added staff and got a good system and flow down to see as many patients as possible.  This is not because we care about high numbers.  We care about people.  We want them to be healthy and happy and educated.  We want to do the most good for as many as possible.  After the earthquake, we were seeing 600 pts/day.  Thankfully, as other hospitals and clinics opened back up and wounds healed, those numbers decreased.  Currently, we see about 250 patients per day.  Everyone counts.

Most of these are return patients.  In fact, there are 76% of our patients that visit us more than once.  Some of these come for monthly blood pressure meds.  Some follow while they are pregnant.  Some only come occasionally when they have a fever or stomachache.  Everyone is different.

There are many that live in the village of Cazale that come to the clinic.  In the first year working here, we were focused on this one community.  Over time, more and more people learned about the clinic through word-of-mouth of past patients.  We began to serve more villages.  Eventually, we received anyone that came, despite their address.  We have had people from the very north and from out in the south.  We see lots of patients from La Gonave Island.  I highlighted in yellow the most common areas from where our patients live.  Everyone is welcomed.

There is so many factors that bring on illness.  Abuse, neglect, poverty, rape, hopelessness, violence, oppression, addiction, bad decisions, lack of education, accidents, and just the meanness of mankind can be issues that are intertwined with our patient’s sicknesses.  Most people want to explain.  Some try to hide it.  We try our best to listen to the words and to the silence.  Everyone has a story.

People come to the clinic when they are sick.  They are in a moment of weakness and looking for strength.  Most generally, they are searching for a way out of the problem that they find themselves in and are hoping for improvements and healing.  Most don’t come to us with their hands outstretched demanding charity, but they are seeking someone to help lighten their burden.   Everyone has a need.

Regardless of nationality, economic status, education, political views, past decisions, sickness, religious practices, family background, or social connections, every human was created by God.  Though no one deserves to be abandoned and left alone in the world, many of our patients have – adult and children.  Some are deserted at the gate.  Others see that the patient is admitted and then withdraw from their lives.  In the void of family and friends, we try to create an atmosphere of acceptance and support.  We try to share an important truth.  Everyone is loved by God.

Throughout these 13 years that the clinic has been open, we have seen many people come through our doors.  Our staff does our best to care for them and love them.  We pray believing that God heals them and restores strength.  We are not into numbers and don’t keep track of every statistic.  Every once in awhile, we hit a chart number and I shake my head in awe that we have had the privilege and honor to cross paths and impact the lives of all of these patients.  Recently, we made a special chart for a very special person – chart #111, 111.  This number seems unreal to me.  This is about 1% of Haiti’s population.  Spread out over 13 years of serving Haiti’s poor, slowly but surely we have touched and been touched by so many lives.  I don’t think that even if you added 3 or 4 more ones, it would impress me anymore though.  It’s not about consulting a large amount of patients or filling up our file cabinets with charts.  It’s about people.  Loving them.  Serving them.  Pointing them to Jesus.  Franckel, like so many of our patients, lives in the mountains behind Cazale.  It takes about 2 hours to walk down from his house to the clinic, but it will take about 3.5 hrs to walk back up.  He came to the clinic to get medications for fever and back pain.  He’s 70 years old and was accompanied to the clinic by his wife.   They founded and help run a church in their village.  They have 6 children and 22 grandchildren.  When they were younger they farmed corn, beans, and millet.  They ate some and sold some, using the income to try to send a couple of the kids to school.  This is common way to make a living here – working your hardest to survive and trying to help your kids have a better life.  He holds chart #111, 111 and he reminds me of an important fact.  Everyone matters.