By Maya Brownstein | Community Giving
Thank you for your support of University Hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti.
University Hospital is the only facility in Haiti where cancer care is completely free -- an essential resource in a country where most live on less than $2 a day. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we're pleased to share the story of a patient, Isemelie (pictured above, left), who received treatment at University Hospital and beat breast cancer.
Her daughter’s wedding was one of the highlights of Isemelie's life; it was also something the 64-year-old Haitian street vendor had doubted she’d live to see.
In March 2013, Isemelie was diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatment options were frighteningly few, so chances were slim she would see her daughter get married later that year. When she heard about a recently opened hospital in Mirebalais, she decided to try her chances.
On May 23, 2013, Isemelie became the first patient to undergo surgery at University Hospital, which is run by Zanmi Lasante, as Partners In Health is known in Haiti. It was a success. She followed a six-month regimen of chemotherapy and has since been on medication to help prevent a relapse. More than three years on, she is still cancer-free. Thanks to PIH, she is now among a small, but growing, group of breast cancer survivors in Haiti.
“If it weren’t for this hospital,” says Isemelie, a mother of four, “I would be dead.”
University Hospital continues to provide first-rate, free medical care thanks to generous donors like you. Thank you!
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