Haitian Health Foundation Featured on PBS on Friday

PBS's NOW program will be airing a program titled Saving Haiti's Mothers a maternal and infant mortality project of the Haitian Health Foundation on Friday, January 29th at 8:30. Check local listings for exact times.

Amidst the tireless planning and relief work that Haitian Health Foundation employees and volunteers are providing to the thousands of people fleeing Port-au-Prince, we are reminded that we also continue our mission of nearly 30 years to the people who were already living in our area prior to the earthquake. Among HHF’s food and nutrition, education, housing, and other programs for the people of Jérémie and its surrounding 100+ villages, HHF provides prenatal programs and emergency evacuations to pregnant mothers in the far reaches of the Grand’Anse.

At the time of the earthquake, we were just a few days into a week-long visit by the award-winning PBS program NOW, led by documentarian Mary Olive Smith and crew. Although the earthquake cut short their shooting schedule, amazingly they have already produced a final piece—called Saving Haiti’s Mothers—that will air on PBS’s NOW program this Friday, January 29, at 8:30 pm in many markets. (The actual air time varies city by city, so click here to determine the scheduled time in your city.)

I hope you will take the time to view this documentary to observe the work that you are helping to support. Scores of pregnant women have come from Port-au-Prince—and already we’ve had reports of some of them giving birth in Jérémie upon their arrival! This is just one of the programs that HHF is proudly gearing up in order to assist the thousands of people who are being added to our catchment area for the long term. Dr. Jeremiah J. Lowney, Jr

More News from Haiti

The Hopital Sacre Coeur has sent out this new update to the situation in Haiti.

The bad news is that many of the patients received are very sick with infections because of their delayed treatment. The staff were up all night Tuesday night trying to save a 19 year old girl but unfortunately she died. A 26 year old man is currently in critical condition, we have put out a call for 2 ventilators and hopefully one will be arriving with the Boston Caritas Christi Hospital group tomorrow and one from St Louis. We are now determining how many additional internists and medical people we will need to care for those with infectous diseases.

We have 48 children victims of the quake and the good news is that several of the girls aged between 5 and 7 who have had amputations and/or have casts on their legs began to walk with their crutches for the first time today outside the “new hospital” - the school across from the hospital building. There were lots of smiles and lots of encouragement as they took their first steps. Kat, one of our Haitian Nurse Practitioners walked with the girls through the mens ward where many have had amputations and told them “See if the girls can do it, you can do it!”. Our incredible volunteers are doing amazing work that stretches beyond providing medical care. Currently there is a group from Caritas Christi, one from St Louis and a medical orthopedic team from Florida. Our thanks too to our staff and volunteer co-ordinating team working in Haiti on supplies and the million other non-medical tasks that need to be accomplished. We are very grateful also to our supporters, those sourcing and flying planes of volunteers with urgently needed supplies,donors of essential supplies and those organizing fundraisers and spreading the word about CRUDEM.

Another 14 patients were discharged today, we currently have 228 patients and are expecting another 20 surgical cases by helicopter Thursday.

The following is an excerpt from Dr Bill Guyol from who just arrived with a team of 12 from St Louis;

“Hello friends of the Crudem Foundation.Greetings from Milot, Haiti! We arrived at the Crudem compound today. It is like coming home, but different this time.The hospital and the town have been transformed.

The people here are exhausted; happy to see reinforcements. Most work 16-20 hour days, missing their meals, showers, beds. What they did here was extraordinary. I cannot describe how valiantly this organization has responded to this crisis.The number of people who dropped all job and family responsibilities and rushed to Haiti restores my faith in mankind’s capacity to love. This was a war - chaotic, bloody, full of human misery, stoicism, inconsolable loss and heroic virtue.

We were greeted with the tears of volunteers on our arrival. They showed us a young couple sitting on a mattress on the grass next to our residence. Fr. Frank, a nurse from Boston and several of our staff were trying to console them. Their beautiful 4 year old daughter had just died of tetanus. My interpreter Patrick was crushed - she had called him Papa.

We need your help. There is an incredible story here that needs to be told. We need your prayers but most importantly we need your financial support. This type of expansion of our responsibilities comes at a great price - human and monetary.

In addition to its support of the Hopital Sacre Coeur, the American Association of the Order of Malta awarded a grant of $75,000 to the relief group AmeriCares in 2009 and has awarded grants over the past decade in excess of $1,000,000.

Updates from Hopital Sacre Coeur

Updates from Haiti at the Hopital Sacre Coeur. To see more images of their work you can visit their website.

Sunday the patients continued to arrive in helos and by road. Doctors from
the French Government field hospital in Port au Prince visited to view our
facility and capabilities. They were very impressed and within an hour 2 of
their helos arrived with 10 patients.

Today the Navy was due to arrive at the hospital to see our capacity and 
capabilities and to co-ordinate efforts going forward.

We are a major player 
in the rescue effort not only because of our expanded facilities, numerous
skilled volunteers and expertise but because we seem to be the first
hospital in the country with a system in place for rehabilitation of
patients into the community. Vision of Hope, a mission 3 miles from Hopital
Sacre Coeur has opened their doors to take our discharged patients (50 so
far) and take care of them until they are ready to return to their
families. Their doctors come to Hopital Sacre Coeur during the day and so
are aware of the needs of each patient when they transfer them to the other
site. This gives us space to take additional critical surgical cases.

 Hopital Sacre Coeur is now posted on the blog of General Fraser of the
Southern Command – http://www.southcom.mil/AppsSC/Blog.php

Here is an excerpt from Dr Steve Fletcher, K.M. who just returned to New
Jersey.

”Well we finally made it back yesterday on a private jet owned by IWorks who 
has apparently donated their entire fleet of two jets and three helicopters 
to Haitian humanitarian efforts. We are exhausted and emotionally drained.
There isn’t one of us who didn’t breakdown at least once during the week.
 For the first two days after the urology team left we were it. My guys did
everything from general surgery to orthopedics. Dr. Lovejoy’s team of
orthopedists arrived on Monday and we rapidly expanded the work and the 
hospital. Rick Pitera, our anesthesiologist and K.M. to be in November was
amazing. On his suggestion we converted the little delivery room into a
fully functioning operating room but without OR lights (these are coming).



We took the three examining rooms across the hall from the OR and converted 
them into procedure rooms complete with oxygen and now monitors so we can
give conscious sedation and do wound washouts, casting and debridements. The
 waiting room is now a pre-op area. The patients who need x-ray are now 
transported up the road next to the cemetery through the back gate so they 
no longer go through the hospital. Post op patients are sent across the
 street to the school that has now become a temporary hospital. One side is
 post-op and the other, on the left as you enter the grounds, is where all
 new patients are evaluated and prioritized for x-ray and surgery.

A Gentleman Is. . .

Thoughts on being a gentleman by Bishop Sheen from his book, Guide to Contentment.

The gentleman is the one who is modest and retiring, who waits first on the others and thinks of everyone but himself, and finds his chief happiness in making someone else happy; who, however poor and humble anyone else may be bears to them the open palm of true nobility.

From the Outfield to the Seminary

From Yahoo Sports comes this heartening story of a young man who's gotten his priorities right and providing a good example to other young men and boys. My teenage sons are avid baseball fans and when I told them about this their response was one of bewilderment that he would give up a possible baseball career. But it makes a good opportunity to discuss the vocation question and that some things are more important than money.

Grant Desme, a 23-year-old minor league outfielder in Oakland's system, is retiring from baseball to follow a calling into the Catholic priesthood.

The story was first reported by Fox Sports' Jon Paul Morosi — perhaps appropriately with that first name of his — and this isn't a case of a struggling player going through an early-life crisis. Desme was ranked the A's eighth-best prospect by Baseball America after hitting .288 with 31 home runs and 89 RBIs in A ball in 2009 and he was just named MVP of the Arizona Fall League.

Desme might have even been a late-season callup to the big league club in 2010. Our Y! Sports 2010 fantasy guide has him ranked the 40th-best minor-league prospect for near-term fantasy purpose. However, ESPN's Rob Neyer disagrees, saying that he didn't see Desme as a future star by the Bay.

Susan Slusser has more on Desme's decision to leave playing against the Padres and Cardinals so he can start praying with other padres and cardinals at a Catholic seminary in Orange County. He said the news came as bit of a shock to Billy Beane, but that the Oakland GM and entire A's system have been supportive of his decision.

Said Desme on a Friday afternoon conference call:

"I'm doing well in baseball. But I had to get down to the bottom of things, to what was good in my life, what I wanted to do with my life. Baseball is a good thing, but that felt selfish of me when I felt that God was calling me more. It took awhile to trust that and open up to it and aim full steam toward him ... I love the game, but I'm going to aspire to higher things."

Desme spoke with Baseball America last year about baseball being only "a game" and we wish him success on his spiritual path. In a selfish age when churches struggle to recruit young male Americans, his sacrifice of possible riches is a very admirable thing.

Medical Needs for Hopital Sacre Coeur

Here is an update from the Hôpital Sacré Coeur :

Hôpital Sacré Coeur – there is a growing and immediate need for some key items

Medication including: Lovenox

as well as 4 Autoclaves – sterilization machines for sterilization of surgical equipment.

March for Life 2010

A picture of the Federal Association of the Order of Malta at the March for Life in Washington D.C. today. H/T to the American Papist.

Crudem Updates from Haiti

There are several news updates on the efforts of volunteers at the Hopital Sacre Coeur in Haiti to aid earthquake victims. The hospital is a designated major work of the Order of Malta and receives both financial and volunteer assitance to operate. To place some perspective on the difficulty of rescue and relief efforts, the Hopital Sacre Coeur is about 100 miles from Port-au-Prince but it is nearly an 8 hour drive to get there.

Here are a couple of the news links.

http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?aid=118563#/Health/Local+doctors+have+ties+to+hospital+in+Haiti/48541678001/48340612001/62541509001

http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=194192&catid=3

http://newsroom.mtv.com/2010/01/20/doctors-in-haiti

http://www.stlbeacon.org/content/view/14345/143

Crudem's Dr. Burzon on Good Morning America on Wed. 1/20

Dr. Burzon (a surgeon from Ocean Medical Center and Jersey Shore University Medical Center in New Jersey) is on a flight back to NJ now. Regina was able to connect the PR Team with him in Haiti and on his return trip. He was interested in speaking with the media, and so we have been able to connect him with local media as well as with ABC News national. News 12 New Jersey will be doing a story tonight, and Dr. Burzon’s video from Haiti will be featured on ABC World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer, and Dr. Burzon is scheduled to appear on Good Morning America this Wednesday Jan 20th. We will keep you updated as details are confirmed.

New Primate in Belgium the "Belgian Ratzinger"

From Reuters is this story on the appointment of the new primate of Belgium replacing the retired Cardinal Daneels.

The long-awaited announcement of the successor to the retiring Catholic archbishop of Brussels, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, has sparked an unusual outcry in Belgium. The new archbishop, André-Mutien Léonard, is sometimes called “the Belgian Ratzinger” for his conservative views. Danneels ranks as one of the last liberal prelates in a Church hierarchy that has turned increasingly traditional under Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict.

Léonard has been a controversial figure in Belgium for his critical stands on
homosexuality, same-sex marriage and condom use. He has been an outspoken opponent of abortion and euthanasia, both of which are legal in Belgium, and criticised the Catholic universities of Leuven and Louvain for their research into assisted reproduction and embryonic stem cells.

The most outspoken comment came from Deputy Prime Minister Laurette Onkelinx, who is the country’s health minister. “Church and State are separate in Belgium, but when there are problems in our society, all the social partners sit down around a table, including representatives of secularism and of religion,” she told RTL radio. “Cardinal Danneels was a man of openness, of tolerance and was able to fit in there. Archbishop Léonard has already regularly challenged decisions made by our parliament.”

Onkelinx said Léonard’s appointment could upset the balance between secular and religious that Belgium has found. “Concerning AIDS, he’s against the use of condoms even while people are dying from it every day. He is against abortion and euthanasia … The pope’s choice could undermine the compromise that allows us to live together with respect for everyone.”

The Socialist Party said it “insists that Archbishop Léonard respects democratic decisions taken by the institutions of our country. For the Socialist Party, the rights and duties that people take on democratically take precedence over religioustraditions and commandments, without any exception.”

Twenty years ago I spent a year living in Belgium and attending the Catholic University in Louvain. At that time the country was supposedly 95% Catholic compared to about 75% today. In my experience even that 75% number is way too high. And as for it being the Catholic University of Louvain, it was about as Catholic as most of the so-called Catholic schools in this country.