I Left My Heart in Diquini, Haiti

It's difficult to articulate the mixed emotion that surrounds this mission and what memories are stored. Many come to mind, some happy, and some I'd rather not think about. I think of Sebastien, the little boy that had a right below knee amputation following the earthquake,but runs faster on his colorful crutches than most kids do on both feet!  His Creole jokes that had everyone around me roaring with laughter, and his countless hugs every morning when our van would pull up to  the hospital grounds.

Driving through the crowded streets of PAP, pensive as the truck passed shanti homes which covered the pavement. Looking at snapshots of people's lives as we drove by endless seas of tent cities. Women cooking on a small charcoal fire outside a USAID tent, toddlers giggling while being bathed in plastic buckets outside the tent, men crowding around a tiny TV to watch the world cup, buying and selling, and more buying and selling at the makeshift kiosks. Faces, faces, faces.

Like Rene, the 19 month old child with severe malnutrition. His limp body and listless look.Hot nights when a breeze was so hard to come by, and pleasant mornings filled with chirping of birds and church choirs practicing outside my window, warm porridge for breakfast, and a table surrounded by fellow volunteers.

The Pediatric Unit at Hopital Adventiste d'Haiti with all its possibilites. We spent long days and nights setting up the unit with equipment and supplies, stopping only for teaching sessions with the nurses, to attend high-risk deliveries, and tend to sick children under the outpatient clinic tent. Improvising at every point to give care with what we have instead of what we know. The joy of performing a painful procedure under moderate sedation with bedside monitoring and appropriate medications, a luxury that didnt exist less than 3 months ago. A preterm infant, jaundiced and septic, receiving antibiotics, oxygen and under a phototherapy light. I could've asked for an incubator, but I was so grateful for what we already had to offer this baby.

I think of Ralph Jean Louis, the 6 month old, with congenital heart disease and pulmonary hypertension lying under the hot sun in an overcrowded pediatric tent at the General Hospital (HUEH). His mother's letter from Boston Children's Hospital offering to fix the hole in his heart if she can be allowed to travel to the US by the Haitian government. She tells me she has applied 4 months ago, but still cannot get a passport.

I think of countless others like him, and I dream of a time when his heart can be fixed in his homeland, and kids like him will receive care in a unit that resembles the one I work in every day in New York, or something like it. A time when care for critically-ill children won't happen a week at a time, or with each mission, but will be accessible year round for the children of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Marilyn M Kioko M.D. wrote this piece shortly after returning from her second mission to Port au Prince, Haiti. It is a composite of the 2 missions, and the images ingrained. Marilyn originates from Nairobi, Kenya and is motivated by the realization of sustainable, accessible Intensive Care Units for children in Kenya and other Developing Countries.