Barr Foundation teams up with Healing Hands for Haiti, 2003
Patrick Severe and Al Ingersoll, CP
Haiti is a country where 50 percent of the adult population is unemployed and 65 percent cannot write or read. The majority of the people cannot get safe drinking water, medical care, or sufficient food for their families. The overwhelming need for caregivers is matched only by the continually growing need for materials and tools used to construct appropriate prosthetics and orthotics for upper and lower extremity amputation and musculoskeletal deformities.
Healing Hands for Haiti's prime goal is to help Haitians to help themselves. The organization is made up of a 17 person medical team from Minnesota providing vital assistance to the disabled in Haiti.
In November, The Barr Foundation's sponsoring prosthetist, Tom Bremer, CP, Bremer Prosthetic Design, Flint, Michigan, traveled to Haiti with ten boxes of supplies from our Hope Donor Members. Bremer cast seven patients. Three were bilateral amputees, including a boy, age nine, with bilateral AK amputations. Bremer, along with Barr Foundation President Tony Barr, returned to Haiti in late January to fit the patients with their new prostheses.
Bremer also provided for a Haitian student to stay at his home and train in his facility. Clifford Cadet, 25, speaks three languages, English, French and Creole. Bremer stated that he will be a real asset to Healing Hands for Haiti.
BK, Zachari, Al Ingersoll, CP, Double amputee, Jean Jules, Tom Bremer, CP and student Clifford Cadet
