Peekskill - The desperate need for more community health workers in the earthquake-ravaged areas of Haiti is being addressed in a new initiative of Hudson River HealthCare (HRHCare).
After a recent visit to Haiti by the Chief Executive of HRHCare, Anne Kauffman Nolon, MPH, as well as a physician and two executives, the team concluded that helping to find funding and in-country training for Haitian community health workers would be the most effective way that HRHCare could help Haiti recover and progress. "This is the perfect marriage between our experience, and what they need," said Ms. Nolon, who has been in the community health field for more than 35 years.
Hudson River HealthCare has 16 community health centers in nine counties throughout the Hudson Valley and on Long Island, and has long had community outreach, prevention and health education programs in the communities where it operates.
Dr. Childebert St. Louis, a medical doctor at the HRHCare health center in New Paltz, New York, said "overseas volunteers are invaluable. But there is a desperate need for trained Haitians with basic health information." Dr. St. Louis, a Haitian American, said that more Haitian community health workers would have greatly alleviated the impact of January’s catastrophic earthquake on the Haitian people.
The World Health Statistics puts the number of health workers in Haiti at 4 per 10,000 population, compared with about 270 per 10,000 in the USA.
HRHCare’s team went to Haiti to assess how the organization could help. They travelled to Milot, a rural region near Cap-Haitien in the North, where contacts with the Crudem health care system helped them to identify a desperate need for trained doctors, nurses and dentists, as well as funds for community outreach, including a mobile health-care unit. At present, health workers must walk up to 10 miles on dirt roads to reach impoverished, often ailing people.
The team travelled south to Jacquet, a devastated region of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where HRHCare’s Chief Financial Officer, Jim Sinkoff, is a trustee of Konbit Football Ayiti, a local community organization that promotes education through soccer. When the HRHCare team offered to train health workers, at least 30 men and women eagerly volunteered. "In these circumstances, it’s from the communities, the grass roots, that change will come," said Mr. Sinkoff, who is a frequent visitor to Haiti.
Ms. Nolon said that as a consequence of HRHCare’s visit to Haiti, they will be helping the Haitians raise money in the US for community health outreach, engaging with other community health organizations already operating in Haiti, and undertaking efforts to encourage medical schools in the United States to play a role in training Haitian health workers.
The whole team was deeply affected by the devastation, poverty and chaos that prevails. "I couldn’t get it out of my mind," said Katherine Brieger, Vice President for Quality Services, who is a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator. She said they were all touched by the eagerness of the children to get educated, and the universal passion for the game of soccer. "In Haiti, if there is something round on the ground, they will try to kick it," Ms. Brieger said.
