The babies were wailing when we first got to the new arrivals ward at the Missionaries of Charity orphanage and clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We were accompanied by Mike Stewart who is the in-country Director for our partner, Hope for Haiti. Pictures of Mother Theresa, the founder of the Missionaries of Charity, looked down on these babies, a few with poor muscle tone, some with severe burns and rampant impetigo, a number of wheezing coughs that signaled respiratory problems, and many chronically malnourished, one so much so that we knew a simple infection or common cold could kill him.
The tragic thing for Haiti is that for many of these children, chronic malnutrition is so severe that they do not make it to 5 years old. This is the poorest country in this hemisphere and the rates of infant and child mortality are still soaring. In looking at one of the reports from Hope for Haiti before dinner, I read 'one out of three children do not make it to 5 years old due to malnutrition, disease, and lack of access to clean drinking water'.
The reality of living in this environment is sobering – today as we were visiting the Hospital St. Damien Chateau Blond, our guide Erin Kloos took us to the roof so we could see an overview of their entire facility. The last room we passed through before the door to the roof, Erin, mentioned was the morgue and lying on a table, were 2 babies wrapped up in hospital pads who had died that morning. I was stopped in my tracks and Erin told me that 2-3 babies die every day at this hospital (which was as state-of-the-art as any I have seen in a developing country). The people are so poor, that coffins are now made from papier-mache.
Our immediate response this morning on seeing the babies at the Missionaries of Charity orphanage was to pick them up. Within minutes, Matt Dayka our photographer, Amy Steets our Program officer, myself, and Sharon Dressen our representative from our partner Rainbow Light, were all holding babies. There was nothing to think about, nothing to consider, just babies who needed to be comforted. At that moment all of my concerns, all of the worries I had been having about work slipped away and I remembered why I was there, why this work is so important and why I feel so fortunate to lend a small hand to these babies who need so much.
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