For more than 20 years, PIH's Right to Health Care (RTHC) program has transported patients to the US to receive care unavailable in their home country, with the help of collaborating hospitals, clinicians, and families. After the January 12 earthquake, with much of the Haitian medical system destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people injured, more patients needed our help than ever before.
One of these patients, Dave, an 8-year-old Haitian boy, was trapped under the rubble for three days after the earthquake before being rescued. His injuries were so severe that his right leg and right arm could not be saved, and the right side of his face was so badly hurt that he required more sophisticated treatment than was available in post-earthquake Haiti. Dave and his father were medevaced to Boston, where he is now walking on his new prosthetic leg, throwing Frisbees with his prosthetic arm, and awaiting additional reconstructive surgery for his face.
Since the earthquake, our RTHC program has served 29 patients and family members. Not only did the disaster transform the scope of the program, the treatments usually needed by our patients once they arrived in the US also changed. Before the earthquake, most RTHC patients suffered from birth defects, cancer, cardiac problems, or advanced infections. Now, our focus has largely shifted to patients with amputations and spinal surgeries, all of whom require complex follow-up care.
In order to assist as many people as possible, PIH has located housing in Philadelphia thanks to the assistance of the Haitian Tabernacle Church of God. Fourteen Haitian earthquake survivors are now living in the city of brotherly love, and receiving care at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. Each of these patients would have died without the immediate care they received at these facilities.
A core part of our mission has always been to treat patients as if they were family, ensuring that they make full physical recoveries and receive social and emotional support during and after medical treatment. Furthermore, each patient (and accompanying parent or guardian, if the patient is a child) has a unique set of psychological and social needs. For example, five adults are currently enrolled in a basic literacy course to learn the alphabet and to recognize numbers, all of which allows them to write their names for the first times in their lives. We will continue to accompany each of these patients and their families, whether it is by securing school fees, providing translation at medical appointments, shopping for groceries, or procuring phone cards to call home.
We are also quickly learning how important it is to develop an ongoing plan for treating and managing psychological distress for earthquake survivors, and arranging for longer-term housing options and other social services, as these patients generally require longer stays in the US than previous RTHC patients. Sadly, even though it has been six months since the earthquake, an overwhelming number of people are still in need of specialized treatment that cannot be carried out in Haiti. With new patients scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks at both Children's Hospital Boston and at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center in Connecticut, it is clear that the RTHC program will continue to treat and support people directly impacted by the earthquake in the months and years to come.
Other hospitals that we’ve partnered with for our RTHC program include Shriners Hospital, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
