Headed For Haiti

    Yesterday my daughter Claire and her husband Miguel left with a team from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago to spend a week on a medical mission in Haiti.
    Claire, an intensive care unit nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago,  has been spending a week or two in Haiti with the Rush team since the catastrophic earthquake in 2010.  The country is still far from recovered.

A tent city in Port-Au-Prince, May, 2010.

Photos from May, 2010.
Left, a clinic set up by the Rush medical team.  Above, Claire with the Haitian Creole translators. 

A tent- orphanage, October, 2011


    This year Miguel, an advertising production coordinator, is joining the Rush team.
    I sometimes joke that I don't know if Miguel is so good at getting things done because of his job or if he has this job because he's so good at getting things done, but one thing I do know is that if you want something, anything, done and done exactly as you ask it to be done, then Miguel's your man.

    And so this week Miguel will be utilizing his talents to help with the logistics and people-organizing end of the Rush team's work at the make-shift medical clinic they'll set up at Jerusalem, a relocation tent-city and orphanage on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince.

     Claire, meanwhile, will probably work in triage determining the priority of the patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition.

Or in the pharmacy:

Clockwise photos:  1. A pharmacy shelf   2.the triage area   3. Claire in the pharmacy.  May, 2010

      
    For the trip Claire and Miguel each packed a suitcase full of supplies for the clinic:

Left, medical supplies spread out on their dining room table.  Above, a suitcase full of precious powdered Gatorade.

    For themselves they were allowed to  bring whatever clothes or personal needs they could stuff into a carry-on backpack.   
    I last heard from Claire and Miguel yesterday afternoon; they were in the Miami airport about to board their flight for Haiti, full of excitement and anticipation.  And right now they should be there, deep in the labor of love they set out to take on.

A Port-Au-Prince orphanage,October, 2013

Update: Last night Miguel posted on facebook:  "Successfully ordered a round of beers in Haitian Creole. Crisis averted."
    I knew he'd be a big hit!