The Salva Vida / Bon Secours medical mission team returned home last week. After almost two weeks in Haiti, the team was tired, rewarded, saddened and inspired. What follows is JoAnn McCaffrey’s last update before returning home:

Pictured: The Salva Vida / Bon Secours team. JoAnn McCaffrey (left in beige), Dr. Fred McGlynn (behind Ms. McCaffrey)

Sunday, 2.28. I want to share with you one final story: One night’s miracle .
About 9 p..m. a young mother arrived at the hospital with her 3 month old baby girl in severe respiratory distress. Hardly breathing and unable to nurse for some time–she was struggling to live.

The baby’s father and the young mother’s family had died in the earthquake, and she had fled Port au Prince for the mountains–with nothing but her baby. As it happened an ER doctor and tech were doing some outreach in the area, and came upon the child. They provided primary care and hurried 4 hrs down the mountain to the hospital in Cayes Jacmel where we were. Our gifted team of docs, anesthesiologists and critical care nurses went to work. For a while it seemed the child was too far gone, but after some amazing interventions, they were able to turn the situation around.
Since there’s no ICU and there were no empty cots or even space to put a mat between beds, the mother and baby came home with the team. They slept on a mattress on the floor of the house where some of us were sleeping–surrounded by nurses and docs ready to be on call! The young traumatized mother asked to take a shower, probably the first in many days. They slept through the night, the baby began taking nourishment, and in the morning given food and clothing. She and the baby left rested and grateful.

All of our team are home now, those from Mercy Children’s in Kansas City, two Haitian-born nurses from Coral Springs, FL, (who were an invaluable asset to our team), and the three of us from Richmond. We’re so grateful for all of the prayer and support you offered during our stay. Let us all continue to pray for the volunteers, nurses, docs, techs, builders, handy-men, rescue teams, pilots…all who contribute physically and financially…But let us especially not cease to hold in our hearts the people of Haiti during their long long road ahead to recovery.

Just as the Salva Vita team returned to the United States, another team, this time from the Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing, departed for Haiti. It is expected that they will not have the same ability to communicate during their trip. GoodSharing will look forward to sharing their story when they return home.

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