Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Awards Haitian NGO

At their annual conference on global health, The Global Health Council presented the prestigious Gates Award for Global Health to GHESKIO - Groupe Haïtien d’Étude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infectieuses Opportunistes, for its nearly three decades of work fighting AIDS and for its Herculean job in helping people survive after the devastating earthquake in January.

President Clinton, who visited GHESKIO while in Haiti earlier this year, described, "Despite the fact that its own headquarters were damaged, GHESKIO almost immediately began housing the homeless, treating the sick and injured, and returning HIV positive patients to their lifesaving medications. For these people, GHESKIO’s services and dedication meant the difference between life and death, health and infirmity, and hope and despair."



In it's 10th year, The Gates Award for Global Health was established by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to reward and exemplify organizations which have developed processes for improving health, especially in resource poor settings, with measurable results.

To learn more about the Global Health Council, the Gates Foundation Award or the annual conference on global health, please visit http://www.globalhealth.org/

Basics for Haiti at the Root of Humanity

The New York Times Editorial Board wrote an excellent piece on what basics Haiti needs to re-build from the earthquake, and turn itself around into a more stable nation. At the top of any "basic human rights" check list comes transparancy, equality, and equal protection under the law. Keeping women and children safe, and planning for more free and fair (and uncorrupted) elections will help to empower the Haiti people and allow for re-building to happen from the ground up with Haitians leading the charge. It is our responsibility as more prosperous and more powerful nation neighbors and throughout the global community to provide the tools either via infrastructure support, education, training, and material donations to help take away Haiti's crutches and allow it to stand as a nation on its own. Strong and solid healthcare infrastruce will alleviate many of the physical and mental barriers that will also help empower Haitians who are still recovering from January's devestating earthquake.

Donations Needed to Ship Another 35 Beds to HSC

According to Handicap International there were an estimated 800,000 disable people in Haiti before the earthquake and estimated 2,000 to 6,000 people were left with some kind of disability by the earthquake. In response to the growing number of disabled people, HSC built a new prosthetic lab, which is now up and functioning. As of June 6, HSC staff and doctors were able to fit its first 6 patients. Another 80 patients with amputations are waiting to be fit, and volunteer prosthetists continue to actively train the Haitian staff in their skill.

The 100 Beds for Haiti's first shipment of 35 beds from Germany have made their way to Miami, Florida, and will be headed to Haiti this week! And it also means that we've reached a little more than 1/3rd of our goal of sending 100 beds to Haiti. In this same light, we were recently informed that there are an additional 35 beds in Germany, which have been donated from a few hospitals. In order to get these beds from a warehouse in Germany to Milot, Haiti, we need more donations to cover the shipping costs. If you haven't had an opportunity to donate, please visit our website www.100bedsforhaiti.com to send us your donation today!

Dr. Peter Kelly, President of Crudem/ Hopital Sacre Coeur recently shared with us this story while working at HSC last month:

At the last nightly meeting before I left I was told of a volunteer who recruited other volunteers and patients to go to the ICU and fix the hair and clean a young woman with a cervical spine injury who is paralyzed from the neck down. This poor woman has been in our ICU waiting for spinal surgery to stabilize her spine so she can be moved to a rehabilitation facility. It took 5 volunteers to stabilize her while a fellow patient cleaned and braided her hair. Other volunteers cleaned her legs and feet and massaged them with lotion. When they were finished they were rewarded with a beautiful smile from the patient that lit up the whole room. It was her first smile since arriving!!

HSC continues to receive critical patients, and again, the need for beds--not cots or make-shift beds-- is overwhelming for overall patient recovery. Whether to make new amputee patients more comfortable in their recovery, or support patients in both pre-operation and post-operation, real and stable beds will is an important link towards overall physical and psychological recovery.