A nurse named Susan...

I think my friends and colleagues are beginning to worry about me. I will not be posing any earth shattering questions this week and had already determined to write a more positive blog entry…even before Dr. Manno showed up at the house tonight. 

But before I talk about what Dr. Manno told me I need to digress from my story to go back to August 2011, before I left for Haiti….when a  nurse named Susan asked me if I would like to take some leftover IV medication with me to Haiti; Susan is a very quiet and shy nurse that often works behind the scenes keeping her community health centre  running smoothly. I took the Pen G with me and at the last minute threw the boxes into my suitcase. This was the only medicine or medical supplies that I brought with me this time.  Shortly after I arrived I walked up to the clinic and dropped them off at their little pharmacy. I couldn’t speak any Kreyol  yet so I just walked up to the window and handed over the boxes to the worker that was standing behind the counter. He smiled and thanked me and went to put them away. I don’t even know if he knew who I was.

So…back to my meeting with Dr. Manno. Dr. Manno is the physician that works at the Ebenezer Clinic and also supervises the cholera treatment centre. We were sitting in my living room tonight debriefing about the cholera surge and thanking God for the miraculous way that God intervened for the people in the community.  There were a series of fortunate events that I call miracles…you can call them coincidences if you like….

A.      200 people went through the treatment centre in 1 week and 90 of them were children. The common death rate at other cholera treatment centres is 3.5% and we only had one person die. Dr. Manno stated “statistically we should have lost 7 to 10 people…and the kids were so sick it should have been higher”.

B.      The day before the cholera outbreak, Dr. Manno visited a clinic a fair distance away in another village. The village he visited had cholera IV supplies. The leader at the clinic said to him “We don’t have any cholera here; please take these supplies with you”. Dr. Manno said he didn’t want them and told the leader “We don’t need this stuff”. The leader would not be persuaded otherwise and loaded his truck up with the supplies. As soon as Dr. Manno arrived home with the supplies, someone ran to his house and told him that the cholera clinic was full of people and they had run out of IV supplies. Dr Manno said “I told them that the supplies were in the back of my truck”.

C.      Public health arrived with more supplies immediately after this supply ran out. Dr. Manno said that pubic health has never….EVER…arrived immediately and respond as quickly as they did.

D.      There was a pregnant woman who was 6 months pregnant and did not lose the baby when 90% of the time pregnant woman will miscarry. 

E.       Rick and I and Dr. B. and 3 other health care workers from the U.S.  all arrived in Seminaire Limbe at the same time during the same cholera outbreak when the staff was unable to manage.

F.       Dr. B was able to do 3 intra-osseus sites on 3 very sick children and they all survived.

Which brings me to the end of this story…Rick spoke up regarding the last point…the point about the intra-osseus sites that were done by Dr. B. and Dr Manno jumped in again and said:

 “ Oh yeah…and that’s not all. One of the children with an IO got an infection and became really sick with osteomyelitis. I sent the dad to Cap Haitian to look for the medication and he couldn’t find any anywhere. I went into our pharmacy at the clinic and said ‘I don’t know what we are going to do but we have to try and find this medicine somewhere’. Then one of the workers spoke up and said to me ‘Dr. Manno..we have some here’. I couldn’t believe it because we don’t order that stuff…someone must have sent it or dropped it off”.

It was at this moment that I knew….I knew that the little shy nurse back in New Brunswick was part of God’s intricate provision but I had to make sure. I had to ask the question. I interrupted Dr. Manno and said “Dr. Manno…what was the name of the medication?” He said “It was Pen G…we never order that stuff”.  I said “It was me who dropped it off at your pharmacy…it was given to me to bring here by a nurse in Canada”.

So this blog is dedicated to my friend and fellow nurse Susan. Thank you for dropping off the medicine that brought healing to a very sick little boy. Awesome to be part of divine plan…isn’t it?