Welcome back!
Chances are you know about our Maternity Centers where babies are born and mothers get prenatal care.
Chances are even higher, that you’re familiar with—or have a deep connection to—our Malnutrition Treatment Centers where parents are empowered and children’s lives are saved.*
*often via dramatic transformations that make even Scrooges among us smile.
But we suspect that you’re less familiar with the role a local hospital plays in this process.
Allow us to fill you in!
Over the past 3 months, Second Mile Haiti has covered the costs of medical care at a local hospital for 84 children and 15 pregnant women, including 13 women who benefitted from emergency c-sections.
Eighty-four children and 15 women!
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Since the beginning, we’ve committed to creating facilities and programs that would complement the existing health care institutions in Haiti, not replace them.
But to stick to this goal, we have needed amazing partners along the way, and Hôpital Sacré Coeur-Milot is at the top of that list.
Thanks to a hard-fought partnership with Hôpital Sacré Coeur-Milot, if we identify a mother or a child who needs urgent medical care—they can get it.
Quickly, effectively, without delay.
Why does this happen? In addition to relationships, a more basic answer is this. Second Mile Haiti pays for that care.
Our most recent hospital bill was $10,655 for care provided between February and April. While it’s a big number, it’s a relatively small sum considering nearly 100 individuals received medical care.
Second Mile paid an average of just $62 in medical fees per child.
Chloe, 9-months-old, is currently recovering from Severe Acute Malnutrition at Second Mile Haiti. She benefitted from two hospital visits during her first month of recovery.
Are your hospital bills that affordable? We guess not! But that’s a topic for another email.
That 10 grand in US dollars represents more than 100 families who needed support during a health crisis and got it.
More specifically, it represents:
13 emergency c-sections
81 children who had lab tests
78 children who needed medicine
4 children who received oxygen
and 4 chest x-rays
Additionally, 3 children had an ultrasound of their heart and started taking medication to resolve a congenital heart condition.
2 children had surgery.
Among these children were Fabiola, Besley, Chloe, and Ella—all alive and well today because of the services they received.
SO why did these kids like Chloe and Besley need hospital care and what was done for them there?
Here’s the short version:
The children we care for through our Malnutrition Treatment Center fall into three main categories.
In the first category are the children who have a straightforward case of Acute Malnutrition.
These children respond rapidly to treatment.
A short round of antibiotics, medication to treat parasites, and a
high-calorie diet is all they need to regain their health and be on on their way…
“Dawens” age 2, has *officially* recovered from Severe Acute Malnutrition as of April 19, 2024.
When children in the second category arrive at our center, it is clear they need immediate medical intervention. We get these children to the hospital as quickly as possible and hope for the chance to work with the family on the other side.
Children in the third category fall somewhere in between.
Their progress is rarely linear and they may require repeated trips to the hospital to determine what is making them sick.
These children are battling heart conditions that they were born with but were never diagnosed-
HIV infections passed on to them from their mothers-
and conditions like cleft palate, hydrocephalus, and diabetes.
These children often require long hospitalizations and even longer stays at our center.
We’re here for it all. We send money to the hospital so that their caregiver’s stay fed during those long days by their child’s hospital bed.
We check-in on the child and speak with the hospital staff in person a few times a week and track down special medications that the hospital doesn’t have in stock—making stops at one pharmacy after another until the medication is found.
At hospitals in Haiti, supplies and medications don’t materialize every time a child needs another dose.
Families have to pay for and collect the items from the hospital’s pharmacy and physically bring them back to the child’s nurse before they receive care.
Our arrangement with the hospital removes this complicated step. With our promise to pay, parents can get the medicine and supplies their child needs.
At our Maternity Centers, we occasionally have to transfer laboring mothers (about 6% of the laboring women that come to the birth center), and less frequently, we have to transfer a just-born baby.
In fact, this occurred yesterday, with a baby who was struggling to breath.
Even Jenn was involved. She helped by holding the newborn across her lap in the middle seat. Flanking her on either side, Lourdie & Gedalia (a nurse and a midwife), continued resuscitation while the car jostled along the bumpy village roads.
For times like these, our Maternity Centers are always staffed with at least one team member who is also a licensed driver. Over the years we’ve helped nearly a dozen employees attend driving school and obtain their driver’s license for this very purpose.
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When the baby was passed into the capable hands of the hospital staff, his vital signs were stable and the baby’s dad reports that he had a good night.
Just this morning, the “transfer vehicle” was called upon once again. A client arrived at our birth center with signs of a placental abruption. She needed a a c-section fast.
She got one.
Mom and baby are doing well.
It’s in these moments—when someone’s life is on the line—that our midwives, our drivers, and our “transfer vehicle” join forces with your support and our partner hospital to save lives.
For us, that is what is means to the go the second mile.
If you’ve read this far, thank you.
If you’re moved by these stories, please consider how you might help.
We’re seeking to raise $10,000 for the next three months of hospital-based care for children and mothers.
Right now, this is our most urgent need.
Thanks for reading ~❤️~ love from Haiti