Daily Online Journal Coming: Healing Hands for Haiti

Posing for their photo are the 2003 Minnesota Healing Hands team, along with the clinic staff and administration.

Watch for Healing Hands for Haiti's exciting daily journal online at www.oandp.com in early February!

A 17-person medical team from Healing Hands for Haiti will leave for Haiti Friday, February 6, and will return on Monday, February 16. The humanitarian team includes a physiatrist, nurse practitioner, a prosthetist, orthotist, O&P technician, five physical therapists, three occupational therapists, three support staff, and a translator.

Viewers can "travel" with the team as they provide vital assistance to disabled persons in this poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

The physician and nurse practitioner, along with Haitian physicians and nurses, will evaluate patients and then send them to the appropriate team member for treatment. The orthotist, prosthetist, and technician will evaluate, fabricate, fit, and repair as many devices as possible while teaching the Haitian technical staff," said Al Ingersoll, CP. "The therapists will treat patients, teach students, and help the O&P staff." Some team members also will visit orphanages each day.

Haiti is a country where 50 percent of the adult population are unemployed and 65 percent cannot read or write. The majority of people cannot get safe drinking water, medical care, or sufficient food for their families. "The overwhelming need for caregivers trained in physical, occupational, speech therapy, orthotics, prosthetics, rehabilitative medicine, and nursing is matched only by the continually growing need for materials and tools used to construct appropriate prosthetics and orthotics for upper- and lower- extremity amputations and musculoskeletal deformities and weakness," the organization points out.

After visiting and working in many hospitals and clinics, Healing Hands for Haiti opened a clinic, school, and guest house of its own to provide an arena for visiting medical teams. Helping Haitians to help themselves is a prime goal of the organization. "Through providing these services, we hope to ultimately see independent and well-trained Haitian personnel who specialize in rehabilitative medicine," the organization says. Another vision is the establishment of a permanent rehabilitation hospital in Haiti.

Healing Hands for Haiti is a nonprofit, nonpolitical, nongovernmental, and nondenominational 501 (c) 3 organization. For more information, visit www.healinghandsforhaiti.org

Along with the daily journal of the mission's trip, an article will be published in The O&P EDGE.