Dr. Auguste and Dr. Suprien with our lovely patient in Haiti

This sweet 82 year old woman was illiterate but there was no mistaking her gratitude in any language when she kissed all the doctors and nurses after her surgery to remove an early cervical cancer.  We often take PAP smears for granted but in many areas of the world there is little or no access to this simple test that can save lives. Worldwide Healing Hands sent a medical team to Haiti to train healthcare providers to screen and treat this preventable cancer in a single visit.

Dr. Joseph Auguste and Dr. Valery Caleb Suprien are Haitian OB/GYNs who are highly skilled surgeons with a great fund of knowledge.  It was such a pleasure to work with them and their nurses in this training program in Haiti. They were such quick learners that they will now become trainers for other health professionals.

Obtaining consent with a fingerprint

What is the issue, problem, or challenge?

Cervical cancer cases number 94 per every 100,000 women in Haiti, giving Haiti the distinction of having the highest incident rate in the world. However, the cancer is preventable and treatable. Haitian women do not receive needed screening and treatment due to few resources and limited access to medical professionals trained in the screening methods. Pap smears are not available to women in these low-resource areas. Providing screening even once for a woman can save her life.

How will this project solve this problem?

WHH  partnered with Project Medishare For Haiti to provide screenings and the necessary treatment to women during its one-week mission in January. In addition, WHH’s medical team educated and trained two OB/GYNs, as well as nurses and affiliate professionals. WHH teaches the single visit approach so women, no matter where they live, can be screened and treated. This life-saving approach is vital; when a mother dies, her children are 10 times more likely to die within 2 years.

Potential Long Term Impact

WHH trained Haitian doctors during the mission so that they, in turn, will train additional medical professionals in cervical cancer screenings and treatment. While conducting screenings and treatment during this mission, WHH used the screenings as training/educational tools for local professionals who then will be able to increase the number of trained providers, boost prevention of the deadly disease, and reduce the number of women’s deaths caused by cervical cancer.

You can help prevent cervical cancer by donating to Worldwide Healing Hands. Your donation will be used for training and buying the necessary supplies.

Dr. Paula Dhanda is being recognized for her dedication to improving the quality of healthcare for women and children in the most under served areas of the world. She began her international medical work in 2009 when she was invited by a fellow surgeon to participate in a medical mission in Chad, Africa. There they performed 50 surgeries in 2 weeks, delivered many high risk babies and trained the local staff. Since then she has led medical teams on 2 missions to Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. In 2012, Worldwide Healing Hands embarked on a mission to Nepal where they trained 10 midwives in life saving procedures, gave care to 1500 women and performed numerous surgeries.

Her efforts to alleviate suffering and promote wellness received recognition in 2010 when Adventist Health presented Her with its “Physician of the Year Mission Award.” In 2011 she received the Soroptimist Ruby Award, which acknowledges women who are working in extraordinary ways to improve the lives of women and girls. More recently, at the 2012 Stars celebration she was named Humanitarian of the Year. In 2013 she was given the American Red Cross Real Heroes award, which “recognizes those in our community who have shown courage, dedication and character through extraordinary acts of heroism and kindness.”

In the words of Dr. Paula Dhanda “Something happens to you, when you leave your family, friends and comforts behind to care for strangers. You discover the opportunity to touch lives in a lasting way.”

In March of 2011 she went back to Haiti for another medical mission, while there she visited the ‘Amputee Soccer Team’ that she had adopted the first time she was in Haiti. The soccer team is made of of young men who lost limbs during the earthquake.

Dr. Dhanda is extremely devoted to her mission and gives her all to help those who are in need. Her next mission will be to Nepal in 2012. She is truly an angel of mercy who spreads love and caring wherever she goes.”

– Stars of Lake County, 2012

This year we pay tribute to mothers everywhere, but one special woman takes that tribute far beyond giving a pretty card and a wrapped present. Her devotion to helping underprivileged women, often mothers, is truly inspiring. Dr. Paula Dhanda is a gynecologist, surgeon and a Park Lane Fashion Director. She uses her Park Lane earnings to support her charity, “Worldwide Healing Hands.”

As a physician and surgeon, Dr. Paula is dedicated to providing medical care to women in some of the most under-served areas of the world.  She has worked in Chad, Haiti and is currently planning her next mission to an isolated hospital in Nepal. Admirably, she donates 100 percent of her Park Lane profits to her charity.

For centuries, a clean birth has been recognized as essential to the health and survival of both mothers and newborns. When babies are delivered in unsanitary conditions without proper care, an otherwise healthy child can be at risk for getting an infection and even dying. According to the World Health Organization, each year almost one million babies die from infection.

For this reason, the United Nations Population Fund and numerous aid organizations are distributing clean birth kits (CBK) in the developing world. These CBK are appropriate in conflict or humanitarian emergencies. Most births in rural areas of developing countries take place at home, often without medical assistance. In these settings, the CDK can reduce maternal and child mortality. The kits are distributed free, so financing is the major obstacle in increasing the kit’s use.

A simple small package, the Clean Delivery Kit contains a clean plastic liner to put under the birth area, gloves,pieces of gauze, a clean razor blade and string for tying the umbilical cord, and soap to wash well before and after the birth. A pictorial instruction sheet is included, as a reminder of the information about the birth process and how to use the materials in the kit. These simple tools are enough to save thousands of lives every year.

The more women who safely deliver their babies, the more women who experience the realities of infection avoidance in birth, the more women there will be who can help their sisters or neighbors or daughters to have safe births as well. The Clean Delivery Kit begins a cycle of health and well being that stretches much farther than the home it is used in. When women thrive, all of society benefits.

Help us to provide clean birth kits. http://worldwidehealinghands.org/donate.html

HOW DO CLEAN BIRTHING KITS WORK?
A Birthing Kit works by providing the SEVEN CLEANS for a clean birth:
1. Clean birth site – preventing delivery onto the floor
2. Clean hands – to prevent the birth attendant transmitting germs to mother and baby
3. Clean ties – to prevent bleeding from the umbilical cord for mother and baby.
4. Clean razor – to reduce infection caused by other implements
5. Clean gauze – to wipe away birth canal secretions from the eyes, which decreases future eye infections
6. Clean umbilical cord – washing and drying the stumps prevents infection
7. Clean perineum

• It is probably one of the most difficult things you will ever do mentally, emotionally and physically. The hours are excruciatingly long and the emotional toll can be unrelenting.

• It is an emotional roller coaster. One moment you will feel joy and satisfaction because over having made a significant difference in someone’s life and the next moment you may witness the sorrow of a tragic loss of life.

• You will be continually confronted with the challenge of giving adequate and meaningful health care under difficult circumstances.

• You will meet like minded volunteers and create life time bonds with wonderful, giving people.

• Working in a resource poor environment you must be creative and invent solutions for problems.

• Be prepared to teach so that you will leave something behind that is long-lasting.

• Be prepared and open to learning. You cannot help but come back changed for the better.

• Communication is challenging due to language and cultural differences.

• Cultural sensitivity is particularly relevant to maternity care. It is important to incorporate those traditions that will strengthen family ties and provide a support system for the woman and her baby.

• It is an adventure but it is not a vacation. The accommodations are usually spartan but luxurious compared to what the local people live in all the time. The food will sustain you and you may learn about hunger. For me weight loss is a good thing.

• It is not uncommon for volunteers to experience profound reactions when arriving home, such as—guilt, sadness, anxiety, and depression.

• Coming home is difficult because your friends and family may not really relate to what you have been through unless they have had a similar experience. Keeping in contact with other volunteers is helpful.

• You may be struck by our shameful waste and abundance. How can we have so much while others have nothing?

• It is life changing as you will never look at things the same way again.

• This experience is rewarding beyond measure.

• You may come away, as I did, with a renewed belief in what humans are able to accomplish when we all work together for a common purpose.

• Mission work is definitely not for everyone.

I invite other volunteers to share their views and comments here.

I am an OB/GYN physician who practices medicine in rural Northern California. I recently returned from my second volunteer medical mission to Haiti where I worked excruciatingly long hours performing surgeries and providing other medical care for women. I want to tell you just one of the powerful stories that has occupied my heart and mind.

Let me provide the setting. The two-bed emergency department was noisy and crowded. It adjoined the ten-bed medical/surgical department and the four-bed ICU, without much separation. There were too many patients and not enough beds. Some patients were sitting in chairs between the gurneys and others were lined up outside the hospital with their chief complaint and vital signs taped to them on a piece of paper, but that is a story for another day.

I asked the translator to bring a screen for some privacy while I found a paper gown to use as a sheet to cover Sarah. In past missions, I have found it easier to perform an ultrasound than to ask a lot of questions to try to determine a woman’s last menstrual period. The translator explained to Sarah what I am doing as I performed an ultrasound with a scanner that was not designed for obstetrics–but it is all we had (and it is more than we had on my last mission here). She was about 14 weeks pregnant, but there were no fetal heart tones I expected to see on ultrasound.

I asked her questions, through the interpreter. “When did the bleeding begin?” “When did the pain start?” The story kept changing and the answers were conflicting. A Haitian surgeon tried to help. He told me she said she had had a D & C elsewhere and subsequently developed pain and bleeding.

I have been taking care of women for many years and I follow my instincts. I told the medical student who had been shadowing me that I was suspicious that something was missing in Sarah’s story. I asked the translator to translate my words exactly, “What did you put up inside your vagina?” Finally, the truth. She had inserted a medication called Cytotec and taken some orally as well.

Port-au-Prince Market

I ordered medication for Sarah to help with the pain of her contractions. She needed a bed. I checked the isolation room. As I looked in, I remembered the 24 year old young man who lay dying of AIDS, yearning to see his mother, who never came. I shook my head to clear it. The bed in the isolation room was empty, so I arranged for Sarah to be placed in there.

I did not want Sarah to be left alone. The nurses were too busy to leave the Emergency Department, so I assigned the bright young Haitian medical student the task of monitoring this scared teenager. Luckily, the student also spoke English, so I gave her very specific instructions to check Sarah’s vital signs, time her contractions, and call for help if there was heavy vaginal bleeding.

Two young men were now at Sarah’s bedside. I could not tell who was the partner and who was the “cousin,” so I let them both stay in the room.

The teenager labored while I cared for other patients, checked on her intermittently, and gave her more pain medication. She delivered the gestational sac intact and the family wanted to see it. After some questioning, they were satisfied that she was no longer pregnant. It was 11:00 p.m. and even though we needed the bed, it was unsafe for the Sarah to go home through the streets of Port-au-Prince.

The following morning, I found a “fatherly” translator and asked him to talk to the two young men about using condoms for birth control. I counseled Sarah about caring for herself during her recovery. She had been through a lot and definitely did not want to repeat the experience. I told her to say “NO!” if her partner does not use a condom. They were all laughing now at my emphatic gesturing. In the previous four days, I had done three emergency D & C’s on young women for incomplete abortions. Unlike Sarah, these women were hemorrhaging. I wondered how many of these had been self-induced.

There is little or no access to birth control in Haiti and a lack of education for young people. There is so much need. I have done a lot, but it is not enough. I return to my home in California with renewed conviction in what people are able to accomplish when we work together for a common purpose. I am determined to raise the funds that will enable me to go on my next medical mission. Don’t underestimate the things that we can do.