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Glide's Sandy Hendy, director of health occupations at Umpqua Community College, gives IV fluids to a Haitian woman recently in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Hendy and Glide's Lesa Beth Titus were part of a 20-member team organized by Project Helping Hands to aid survivors of the country's devastating earthquake.
So you know ...
Information: Project Helping Hands Web site: www.project-helping-hands.org.
Donations of medical supplies can be taken to Sally Honse at the Woolley Center at 1634 W. Harvard Ave. in Roseburg. She can be called at 541-496-4654.
Sally Honse of Glide is a member of a Helping Hands team that is scheduled to leave for Haiti in about three weeks. Honse is a teacher at Wolf Creek Job Corps and has previously been to Sudan and Uganda with Helping Hands teams.
“It's an opportunity to go into a country, it doesn't really matter where, and help people who have absolutely nothing,” she said. “That's why I do it.”
Honse explained that she's able to help doctors and nurses on her team, but also finds time to teach while on her trips.
Donations of medical supplies can be taken to Sally Honse at the Woolley Center at 1634 W. Harvard Ave. in Roseburg. She can be called at 541-496-4654.
Sally Honse of Glide is a member of a Helping Hands team that is scheduled to leave for Haiti in about three weeks. Honse is a teacher at Wolf Creek Job Corps and has previously been to Sudan and Uganda with Helping Hands teams.
“It's an opportunity to go into a country, it doesn't really matter where, and help people who have absolutely nothing,” she said. “That's why I do it.”
Honse explained that she's able to help doctors and nurses on her team, but also finds time to teach while on her trips.
Lesa Beth Titus called the effort of her medical team a drop in the bucket. She added that a lot of drops were going to be needed to help the Caribbean island country of Haiti recover from a devastating earthquake, so every little effort is important to that end.
Titus and Sandy Hendy, both of Glide, recently returned from a 10-day trip to Haiti earlier this month. They were part of a 20-member medical team that was organized by Project Helping Hands, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide medical care and education in Third World countries to those with no medical care or limited medical access.
The team set up mobile clinics in three different locations in the capital of Port-Au-Prince and also visited a tent city and an orphanage. In seven days of seeing patients, with work days ranging from five to nine hours, the team saw 1,450 patients.
“For not knowing what we were getting into, not knowing the needs, I really think we did a good job,” said Titus, the leader of the team. “I think we were able to pave the way for future teams.
“We made an impact on some individual lives,” she added. “I do believe we touch some people's lives.”
Titus, 48, is the trauma coordinator and a nurse at Mercy Medical Center. This was the fifth Helping Hands medical team that she's led, having been to Sudan three times and to Haiti three years ago.
Hendy, 57, is the director of health occupations at Umpqua Community College. Each of the past two years, she has taken groups of UCC nursing students to Guatemala to learn and to provide medical services to those in rural areas where such services are limited.
They knew they were going to see devastation unlike any they had ever seen before. But it was more than they imagined.
“I think what impacted most of us was to see the devastation and disaster for as long as we saw it,” said Hendy. “It kept going, on and on and on. It was huge.”
She added, however, that the Haitian people didn't give the impression of being overly stressed despite the crumbling conditions.
“The people appeared to be very clean, their clothes were clean, they tried to give an appearance of not being disheveled,” she said. “They gave an appearance of a proud people. The men wore pants and the women were in dresses.”
Hendy said she didn't see naked kids with skinny legs and bloated bellies. Instead, there was more evidence — such as skin infections — of poor nutrition rather than malnutrition. She explained skin infections are the result of vitamins and minerals missing from a person's diet.
The 20-member medical team, half of them from Oregon and Washington and the rest from across the U.S., was originally scheduled to meet in Miami and then fly to Haiti. Plans had to be changed, however, when commercial flights into Port-Au-Prince were stopped shortly before the team's departure.
So arrangements were made to fly into Santiago, Dominican Republic, and then it was a 10 1/2-hour rough road trip to Port-Au-Prince. The team members ranged in age from 23 to 61 and came together as strangers, but Titus said they quickly meshed into a productive team. They brought their own supplies, over a ton of bandages, gloves, masks, medications, IV fluids, nutrition therapy fluids, etc.
Tents (mobile clinics) were set up and the team proceeded to see Haitians in need of health care. There was a translator at each tent to help with communication.
“We saw the full spectrum, from people just wanting encouragement to those with typhoid,” said Titus.
Scabies was one of the most common skin infections that they treated. Scabies is caused by a mite under the skin that causes swelling and a rash. It's highly contagious and is prominent in close living conditions such as is the case in Port- Au-Prince.
“It's going to be an epidemic there,” Hendy said of scabies.
Ringworm was also seen on a lot of children. There were a lot of red eyes from the dust in the air, both from the earthquake and from the rubble.
But while the dust will be dampened by the start of the rainy season in a couple of weeks, Hendy and Titus said the rain will bring mosquitoes and more malaria and typhoid.
“Health care is such a nightmare when you have improper sanitation,” said Hendy.
The two nurses explained that part of the treatment of the patients was education — how to prevent some of the health issues. Some of the proven home remedies for people in Third World countries seem simple to most in the U.S., but to the Haitians the team emphasized the importance of boiling water to sanitize it, washing hands and putting in and using latrines.
“The mission is to try to give a family tools it can use after we leave,” Hendy said.
What the team members weren't ready for were temperatures that reached 103 degrees during the day and didn't cool off much at night. There were no air-conditioned rooms to work in, but rather tents with no cooling breezes.
The team members dealt with dehydration and had to treat each other with IV fluids.
“Everybody looked out for everybody else,” said Hendy. “We took care of each other, making sure everybody got what they needed in order to continue to work with the team. We wanted team members to be healthy so we could continue to help the people there.”
“It was very physically trying for us because of the heat,” Titus said. “But people recovered well and kept working. Everyone filled in the gaps when needed and no one complained.”
While conducting their daily clinics, the team members saw other examples of international aid being provided.
“We saw British and Canadians helping and people from two Middle East countries working together on a construction project,” said Titus.
The team saw the beginning of some cleanup work on buildings and some work on fixing a water system, but literally saw tons of work waiting to be done.
“There'll be years and years of recovery,” said Titus. “I can't imagine how they'll rebuild their infrastructure. It'll take a lot of engineering.”
Hendy said she had mixed feelings about leaving when the team's week was up.
“The people were so appreciative,” she said. “They thanked us profusely. They said please come back, they said send more people. They said you brought hope and care.
“We came home with a different view,” she added. “It shifts our reality a little bit about the things we have. You appreciate a lot more what the U.S. has to offer.”
• News-Review Features Editor Craig Reed can be reached at 957-4210 or creed@nrtoday.com.
Titus and Sandy Hendy, both of Glide, recently returned from a 10-day trip to Haiti earlier this month. They were part of a 20-member medical team that was organized by Project Helping Hands, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide medical care and education in Third World countries to those with no medical care or limited medical access.
The team set up mobile clinics in three different locations in the capital of Port-Au-Prince and also visited a tent city and an orphanage. In seven days of seeing patients, with work days ranging from five to nine hours, the team saw 1,450 patients.
“For not knowing what we were getting into, not knowing the needs, I really think we did a good job,” said Titus, the leader of the team. “I think we were able to pave the way for future teams.
“We made an impact on some individual lives,” she added. “I do believe we touch some people's lives.”
Titus, 48, is the trauma coordinator and a nurse at Mercy Medical Center. This was the fifth Helping Hands medical team that she's led, having been to Sudan three times and to Haiti three years ago.
Hendy, 57, is the director of health occupations at Umpqua Community College. Each of the past two years, she has taken groups of UCC nursing students to Guatemala to learn and to provide medical services to those in rural areas where such services are limited.
They knew they were going to see devastation unlike any they had ever seen before. But it was more than they imagined.
“I think what impacted most of us was to see the devastation and disaster for as long as we saw it,” said Hendy. “It kept going, on and on and on. It was huge.”
She added, however, that the Haitian people didn't give the impression of being overly stressed despite the crumbling conditions.
“The people appeared to be very clean, their clothes were clean, they tried to give an appearance of not being disheveled,” she said. “They gave an appearance of a proud people. The men wore pants and the women were in dresses.”
Hendy said she didn't see naked kids with skinny legs and bloated bellies. Instead, there was more evidence — such as skin infections — of poor nutrition rather than malnutrition. She explained skin infections are the result of vitamins and minerals missing from a person's diet.
The 20-member medical team, half of them from Oregon and Washington and the rest from across the U.S., was originally scheduled to meet in Miami and then fly to Haiti. Plans had to be changed, however, when commercial flights into Port-Au-Prince were stopped shortly before the team's departure.
So arrangements were made to fly into Santiago, Dominican Republic, and then it was a 10 1/2-hour rough road trip to Port-Au-Prince. The team members ranged in age from 23 to 61 and came together as strangers, but Titus said they quickly meshed into a productive team. They brought their own supplies, over a ton of bandages, gloves, masks, medications, IV fluids, nutrition therapy fluids, etc.
Tents (mobile clinics) were set up and the team proceeded to see Haitians in need of health care. There was a translator at each tent to help with communication.
“We saw the full spectrum, from people just wanting encouragement to those with typhoid,” said Titus.
Scabies was one of the most common skin infections that they treated. Scabies is caused by a mite under the skin that causes swelling and a rash. It's highly contagious and is prominent in close living conditions such as is the case in Port- Au-Prince.
“It's going to be an epidemic there,” Hendy said of scabies.
Ringworm was also seen on a lot of children. There were a lot of red eyes from the dust in the air, both from the earthquake and from the rubble.
But while the dust will be dampened by the start of the rainy season in a couple of weeks, Hendy and Titus said the rain will bring mosquitoes and more malaria and typhoid.
“Health care is such a nightmare when you have improper sanitation,” said Hendy.
The two nurses explained that part of the treatment of the patients was education — how to prevent some of the health issues. Some of the proven home remedies for people in Third World countries seem simple to most in the U.S., but to the Haitians the team emphasized the importance of boiling water to sanitize it, washing hands and putting in and using latrines.
“The mission is to try to give a family tools it can use after we leave,” Hendy said.
What the team members weren't ready for were temperatures that reached 103 degrees during the day and didn't cool off much at night. There were no air-conditioned rooms to work in, but rather tents with no cooling breezes.
The team members dealt with dehydration and had to treat each other with IV fluids.
“Everybody looked out for everybody else,” said Hendy. “We took care of each other, making sure everybody got what they needed in order to continue to work with the team. We wanted team members to be healthy so we could continue to help the people there.”
“It was very physically trying for us because of the heat,” Titus said. “But people recovered well and kept working. Everyone filled in the gaps when needed and no one complained.”
While conducting their daily clinics, the team members saw other examples of international aid being provided.
“We saw British and Canadians helping and people from two Middle East countries working together on a construction project,” said Titus.
The team saw the beginning of some cleanup work on buildings and some work on fixing a water system, but literally saw tons of work waiting to be done.
“There'll be years and years of recovery,” said Titus. “I can't imagine how they'll rebuild their infrastructure. It'll take a lot of engineering.”
Hendy said she had mixed feelings about leaving when the team's week was up.
“The people were so appreciative,” she said. “They thanked us profusely. They said please come back, they said send more people. They said you brought hope and care.
“We came home with a different view,” she added. “It shifts our reality a little bit about the things we have. You appreciate a lot more what the U.S. has to offer.”
• News-Review Features Editor Craig Reed can be reached at 957-4210 or creed@nrtoday.com.
