Eusaine is the women’s health nurse in the clinic.  She does pre- & post-natal consults, babies from birth to 6 months, women’s health screenings, birth control, all the patients on the food boxes, and general consults.  She started working for RHFH in June 2012.

She is 35 yrs old.  She was born in the mountains behind Cazale, but moved with her family to the bigger town of Arcahaie when she was a child.  She has 3 brothers and 1 sister.  Her father died and her mother is still living.  When she isn’t working in the clinic, she stays with her mom at her house in Arcahaie.  Her sister also stays there.  During the week when she is working, she stays with a cousin in Cazale.  She is a Catholic and asks that you pray for her health, family, and strength & hope to fight discouragement.  She has worked as a teacher and is also active in a community group in the mountains.

She enjoys all aspects of her work so it’s hard for her to pick just one thing that she likes.  If she had to sum it up it would be that this job gives her the opportunity to help people have good health and live well.  Her favorite thing is to catch a pregnant woman with pre-eclampsia and help support her through the pregnancy and birth.  She has seen and heard of many women that have died from this.  She was happy to have an American volunteer teach her how to treat these women and has seen much success.  With this knowledge, she knows that many women and babies have been saved.  A favorite memory while working here was when the clinic staff went to the beach for a day — and she hinted that she’d like to do that again.  😉

She doesn’t like the long days because it makes her tired sometimes.  She would like to have a better fan because her room gets hot in the summer.  There are some things that would make her work easier like AAA batteries for her headlamp and more metal speculums.  She would like to have some type of visual aid to help her teach women about breast and cervical cancer.  When there are medications in stock, she feels that she can better care for the patients.  She would like for the whole clinic to have more room so that we could care for patients better.

One patient that she will always remember is a newborn that came in weighing 2 lbs 10 oz.  The baby was stable and the mother was willing to do anything to help her baby.  Eusaine taught her many techniques to ensure growth and development of the baby.  They had frequent appointments so that Eusaine could monitor the weight and condition of the baby and also encourage the mother.  She put the mother in a feeding program to improve her health and the quality of the breast milk.  The baby took awhile to gain weight and it was very difficult to do all the extra care needed for the baby to live, but it was worth it.  Mom and baby are very healthy now.  Eusaine uses them as an example and encouragement for her and other patients.  She will always remember that patience, mom’s tender care, and consistent work are needed with these preemies.

Her job helps her to use the education that she has to help others and also gives her the opportunity to learn new things.  She wants to be remembered as a person that was constantly striving to improve her knowledge, skills, and the care that she gave.  She sees the women of Haiti deserve to have access to good health and she is proud to be working in this area.