Haiti Rehabilitation Centre

Building on the excitement of opening our HHA’s Rehabilitation unit, one of the first in Haiti, late last year, we have some really encouraging feedback from the unit’s head nurse and our rehabilitation patients.

Head nurse Mme Magloire reports how patients tell her the unit has given them a reason to live; in a country where people with disabilities are known as ‘worthless’ this is truly remarkable.  She says they would never have imagined receiving the care they get daily; a holistic programme of physiotherapy, rehab. excercises, a resident psychiatrist to facilitate mental rehabilitation and wellbeing, and vocational activities.   It is brilliant to have this feedback, and it is an endorsement of our goals to challenge attitudes to disability in this country; even starting with those who are themselves disabled.  

Rehab patient Fritzner Eugene is particularly impacted by the approach of the nurses to their work.  “They give us dignity,” he says; “I couldn’t have imagined finding this kind of care in Haiti.”  Fritz is also amazed at his own physical healing and progress since he arrived at the unit; “When I came my two wounds were larger than a hand each. Now they are less than the width of a penny.”

What’s more, early in the year we received confirmation of a partnership with the UN’s Community Violence Reduction Team, to begin building a disability sports centre right next to the Rehabilitation unit. Sport is an incredibly powerful tool to overcome the awful stigma people living with disabilities have to face in Haiti, transforming attitudes and helping communities understand disability, so we’re really excited to begin this work which will be a hub of activity, providing indoor training facilities for seeking to join Haiti’s paralympic movement.  It will also support grass root activities for kids, teenagers and less competitive adults offering wheelchair tennis, wheelchair basketball and sitting volley ball.

As you can see we have a lot to celebrate and also a lot to work for; can you join us by donating to our Rehabilitation Project? Please help us provide on-going support to those learning to live with disability and grow our work encouraging Haitian society to embrace their adults and children with disabilities and benefit from their skills and contribution. 

Links:

• Follow our latest news here
• Regular updates at our blog
• Rehab patient Leon's Paralympic dream

Merry Christmas from the Haiti Hospital Appeal!

We want to take this opportunity to wish all our supporters the very best of seasons greetings. Christmas can be a wonderful time of the year, yet it can also hide us from the realities of life for the hurting and the broken, wherever they might be.  For us, we seek to continue to bring hope and new life to the people of Haiti through health care services. It really has been an exciting year. Even today, construction continues on our site. Yet, we look to next year believing greater things are yet to come.

Rehabilitation Centre Official Opening

In November we had the inauguration of the Rehabilitation Centre, the culmination of a building project that partnered five organisations to deliver rehabilitation to people with disabilities across the north of Haiti.  Named after our Medical Directors daughter who tragically died last year, the ceremony was a moving reflection both on the tragedy of the last few years in Haiti, but also the hope, belief and reality of positive change.  The United Nations, Swiss Paraplegic Foundation, Konbit Sante, Healing Hands for Haiti and ourselves have pioneered this work in Haiti. Work that was thought to be unachievable prior to the earthquake, to take care of adults and children with disability that breaks new ground. It is a privilege to spearhead this work, that we believe will continue to push new boundaries, giving new hope and freedom for disabled people and challenge the culture of fear and oppression that surrounds them from the communities they live in.

The event was a huge success. Our long-term spinal chord patients and the children from the House of Blessings took part alongside plenty of dignitaries from across Haiti. It was for us a celebration of what can be achieved through dedication, compassion and the desire to see change that lasts.  Before the earthquake, people with Spinal Cord Injuries had little or no chance of survival.  However, this centre along with other partner NGO’s has dramatically changed that tragic reality, making ground breaking developments in rehabilitation over the last 18 months, and marking history as the first permanent unit of this kind in North Haiti.

This work needs your help if it is to succeed. Can you support it? Please donate today. Thank you.

Keep an eye out on our website for information about a few events taking place over the month of January. On the 12th we remember the 2nd year anniversary since the earthquake.

Thanks for all your continued help and support, we wish you a very happy new year.

With love

All of the Haiti Hospital Appeal Team

Links:

• Keep an eye out on our website