2/4/2010 Double Harvest Haiti Update

Posted on February 04th, 2010 in haiti

via cousin Abe van Wingerden:

2/4/2010 Double Harvest Update

Friends of Double Harvest,
After spending the last 2 days listening the Dr. Art McCulloch and Nick VanWingerden talk about their experiences in Haiti, I am even more overwhelmed at the work that is being done at Double Harvest.

AT THE MISSION – thanks to J.L. Williams for getting a new generator delivered and procured (free from the U.S. Military) for Double Harvest. What awesome news and now we can better run much of the surgical and other needed equipment on site. This also allows the old generator to now serve as a backup as we are not sure when regular power will be restored. We also had a birth at Double Harvest a few days ago. See the pictures attached and the unique heating system they used for the newborn at the hospital.

MORE ON THE NEWS – Dr. Art McCulloch was featured on WBTV news in Charlotte two nights ago as the lead story. Some of the facts of the history of Double Harvest are a bit off, but it was good to see the media allow Art to tell the real story about Double Harvest and the real story of the Haitian people. Click on the link for this story.

HOW YOU CAN HELP – money is still the best option by far. As mentioned before, it costs $6,000 in shipping alone to get a container to Double Harvest. Additionally, it can take up to 3 months for a container to get into the country. We can buy locally on some of the items needed for everyday. For example:

Typical Costs of Items in Haiti
=====================
$0.50 for a lb of rice
$1.00 for a lb of beans
$0.10 for a starter Tilapia Fish (takes 3 months to grow to full size)

One Meal of Fish/Rice/Beans/etc for a person is $0.50

ELECTRICITY
$5.00 Gallon of Gas
*Takes 200 Gallons a Day to run the facility

SCHOOLING
$30 a Month to give a child one meal a day, books, and cover tuition at the school at Double Harvest

BOARD MEETING – As noted in the last update, the Double Harvest board will be meeting this week and weekend to begin the process of working a “re-building “ plan including additional plans for how you can help and for those whom want to visit Double Harvest on-site on a non-medical volunteer work basis for a weekend, week, etc. Much work in planning to be done, but the long-term need is great and our team is up to the challenge.

More to come on the promised drop locations and other great news going on at Double Harvest. We have more rotations of doctors coming in, and we have some of the original team (Uncle Arie, my parents,) and my brother and sister-in-law on their way back to Haiti this weekend for another “tour of duty”. Thanks to everyone for their continued support, concern, and prayers for Double Harvest.

And, thanks to the almost 2,700 member strong Facebook nation that is part of Double Harvest (Check it out at Facebook and key word Double Harvest) and at DoubleHarvest.org. Lastly, thanks to the continued contributions that are still coming in everyday.

via Frantz (administrator at DH)

As you can see things seem to have cooled down as Haiti is not as much on the news. Well, let me tell you. Don’t let this fool you, things are not that great here. Yes, to be positive the medical issue has been taken care of as far as emergency, we still have a lot of patients being seen. Not just for follow up but for plenty other medical needs. Follow ups are still very important and crucial. The clinic is still operational on campus, that is great as the people still need medical attention.

The bigger problem recently is feeding. The medical help came so fast that now we expected the food distribution to be as quick. Now, some places have been distributing some food, wow we just had an aftershock, wow you never get use to this. Anyway, yes, we have been distributing food, and our kids, employees, patients and family members, are still getting their daily plates of rice, beans, chicken and fish.

JL Williams is still working all day getting us patients and making good contacts for us. One of his great contacts got us a 225 kw generator. We really needed this unit as we are running our hospital 24 hours a day still. We do not know when this will stop yet.

The recovery room inside the hospital is full, we now have a post op 1, 2 ,3 and thanks to the donation of a dominican organization we got 4 nice size tents, we were able to open a post op 4.

We are still very busy at Double Harvest. Tomorrow we are expecting about 25 doctors and staff from Miami Baptiste Hospital for scheduled surgeries. This time we will also have a OBGYN. We were due for one. With our visit today from a high staff from the American Embassy, we will be provided with 8 nurses from Texas. Again, nursing is a big need for us.

Finally, today we had the visit from a General from Canada who had provided some food for the UNICEF program. He was worried that they did not bring the kids yet. He promised to look into it and get back to us soon. Shelter will be a big problem for the people soon as yesterday we have a first tease of rain. Normally we would be due for rain, I hope it gets postponed.

I am not sure if I can say that help is not moving fast enough or that we are being impatient, one thing for sure the people are losing some hope as they really do not have too much to hold on to.

Please keep them in your prayers, they really need your help.

Share and Enjoy: