Staff member Ralph Louissaint lent his skills as a medical professional to a group of doctors from Loma Linda Hospital who went to Haiti. On this medical trip he assisted with critical and severe surgical cases for children with various deformities. Ralph assisted Dr. Nelson and others at the Hospital Advantist Haiti (HAH), over 30 surgeries were performed during their short stay. It was amazing work for children who just simply wouldn’t be able to travel anywhere to receive these life changing surgeries.
During a previous trip to Haiti we noticed there was a shortage of medical surgical equipment which is the true bottleneck to performing more surgeries during a stay. Ralph took it upon himself to get trained on repairing surgical equipment when he returned to the United states. A secondary purpose for his trip was to transfer some of that knowledge that he gained to the hospital techs in Haiti. When he wasn’t in the operating room he was providing tutelage on how to repair and fix several common problems with the broken expensive surgical equipment that would otherwise be thrown away and rarely replaced. Although it wasn’t an exhaustive training by any stretch of the imagination it served the purpose of getting the local staff to start to explore repair options for their existing equipment in an effort to extend the lifespan of each machine rather than trashing them.
If there are hospitals and clinic that have equipment and materials used on the operating rooms and hospitals that they want to donate, please reach out to us we know of plenty places that can use them. We welcome all volunteers that want to join us during one of our trips, sign up as a volunteer to be notified for future opportunities. As always donations are welcomed year round.
Thank you for your trust and support!