A typical medical team day.

Not sure what folks picture when they hear we help with the Holy Cross Lutheran

Check in.

 medical teams so I though today I would walk you through a typical day.

Following breakfast at the hotel in Cap Haitian we load up into two trucks and head out to the day's clinic location. For three of the locations outside of town we drive for 1-2 hours to the local Lutheran church.

Then we set up. In addition to one location for checking in the people, three locations are chosen and arranged to see patients and one pharmacy site. This trip there was also a location for testing for reading glasses.

School benches and a few chairs make up the locations. At the pharmacy the patients can sit to wait for their medications, with the desk part of the bench used as a shelf. A few benches are used for pharmacy shelves- generally the desks are placed in an 'L' shape with the pharmacy folks working inside the 'L'.

Left side..one consultation area

Each consultation location includes: a thermometer, a box of gloves, hand sanitizer, clipboard, and the consulter's backpack. While I don't need a translator the others have one extra chair for their helper.

Pharmacy

When things are being set up in the pharmacy I generally start talking to the waiting crowd as education is really the biggest goal of the clinic. Most locations the pastor then prays or sings and prays with the waiting patients to start the day as well.

 When everything is in place, Cory takes my place and continues with general education and some preventative medicine and home remedies for common problems.

Once that is done, if he's not helping somewhere else, he talks one-on-one with my patients after I've seen them, sharing advice about their specific problems so that I can move on to the next waiting patient.

Eye testing

Some time around 1 o'clock or so the team will start taking a bit of a lunch break. We do not all go at once as generally a small private area is used at each location. Lunch generally consists of tuna or peanut butter on crackers or bread, granola bars, and a drink. Then back to work.

We try to limit the patients to about 100 a day depending on the travel time..and a few days saw more than that.

Patients also received a gift of soap, toothbrush, or toothpaste, and at two locations Konsey books. Reading glasses were also given the first few days until supplies ran out.

Black sapote tree planted a few years ago at the Lutheran farm.
Breadfruit and starfruit are producing.

Then we pack up, load the trucks and bounce our way back to the hotel. Generally on the first night or so we sort supplies into boxes for the various days. Then each night the supplies adjusted, if needed for the next day.

Great to hear some folks talking about how the advice from past clinics have improved their health.