Stay focused on Haiti, returning aid workers say

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Dee Leahy wants people to keep focused on Haiti long after the news reporters leave there.

"The people are suffering, and they will continue to suffer. But they are resilient," said Leahy, a member of Mary Queen of Peace Parish in Webster Groves who was in Port-au-Prince during the earthquakes there last month.

One Haitian told her: "You can cut down all our flowers, but you can't take away our springtime."

Leahy said 80 percent of the capital city was destroyed and the other 20 percent "probably needs to be taken down because it's so severely damaged. This will go on for years. I want to keep people's eyes focused on Haiti because these people deserve better."

Leahy directs People to People and has been involved with Haiti for 17 years. She visits every few months and was there for about 10 days before the earthquake hit. That day she was in three places, two of which came down in rubble. But she was outside a children's hospital with two others when the ground shook. "We just grabbed each other. I said, 'This is an earthquake. Let's run and evacuate the children.' We took out over 200 kids within 15 minutes."

The first few days "we did nothing but treat patients day and night," Leahy said. "So many injuries, so many amputations. There were mothers giving birth with dead bodies just a few feet away. Just horrific, crushing injuries. I started driving people back and forth to Dominica trying to get better quality of care for them. One was a 5-year-old girl, just a sweetheart. I don't know if we saved her leg, but we did the best we could."

Victims included a woman whose scalp was detached from her skull and her head full of rocks from the earthquake. "I did all I could. She died the next day. I had a man who had severed an artery. He asked if he was dying. I said, 'Yes, you're dying.' He said, 'Will you hold my hand?'"

She held a 2-month-old with a laceration from the middle of his nose to the back of his head whose mother was wailing in grief for another child. "You could see her child's hand in the rubble. She was 2 years old. "

Leahy told the stories because she want people to know "things like this are still going on in Haiti. There's pockets we've not reached yet."

Her organization has no administrative expenses, and she works with a religious order that seeks no publicity. "Ninety-five percent of our money goes to them. We have a feeding program, and by the second day we were giving out food."

The Haitian people did not complain, Leahy said. "Never once did I hear 'Why me?' or "God, why did you do this to us?'"

Prayers are needed, she said. "Any sacrifice you offer up for the people of Haiti is appreciated. Whatever we're going through on this side, it's really not much compared to what they're going through."

Leahy returned home to rest and recover. She breathed in dust and dry sewage, but said she is doing fine. She will return soon.

Financial assistance can be sent to People to People, P.O. Box 221021, St Louis, MO 63122. See www.peopletopeo plehaiti.org.

More work ahead

"We're going to be busy for months," said Dr. William Guyol, a St. Louis physician who just returned from a hospital in Haiti sponsored by the CRUDEM Foundation. The foundation was started by Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Louis some 24 years ago to bring much-needed medical care to a rural village in a poverty-ridden area of Haiti.

Guyol wrote about his Jan. 25-30 visit on the website of SSM Health Care.

The hospital was one of the few hospitals still operating in Haiti after an earthquake last month, and it quickly became the nation's largest hospital. Guyol wrote that it was caring for up to 300 patients at a time, many times the usual number. Complicating matters is that the people who are treated have no home, he noted.

"Right now they're ours. And their families are here now. They're in the hospital sleeping on the floor, with no food, no money and no means of support."

He described "horrifying trauma" involving patients with spinal cord injuries, multiple fractures and amputations. The orthopedists who treated them "were amazing. The first couple of weeks they operated til midnight every night, got up at 6 a.m. and did it again."

Guyol, who will be returning in a week, said, "We're going to be busy for months."

SSM has been generous in arranging supplies, the physician wrote. Nurses are especially needed. He praised the CRUDEM Foundation for arranging for medical personnel to come to the hospital. Guyol travelled with Dr. Robert Flood and nurse Mary Laffey of Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center.

"What they did here was extraordinary. I cannot describe how valiantly this organization has responded to this crisis. The number of people who dropped all job and family responsibilities and rushed to Haiti restores my faith in mankind's capacity to love," Guyol wrote.

To support the mission effort, see www.crudem.org/give.

Doing His work

Deacon Len Sisul of Holy Redeemer Parish in Webster Groves and a member of the Haiti Medical Mission Team there, recently spoke about "Where Is God in Haiti?" He said God "has commissioned us to live out the Beatitudes. We must do His work now."

Haiti "is a call to the world to abandon materialism and refocus our lives on compassion, love and mercy," Deacon Sisul said. It is in Haiti "that we can learn about the love and mercy of God."

Chaminade College Preparatory School is raising $20,000 to help the people of Haiti. Chaminade has already raised more than $5,000, and a neighbor, Missouri Professionals Mutual, extended a matching grant up to $10,000 to help the CRUDEM Foundation's efforts to help those directly affected by the earthquake.

For more information or to make a donation, go to www.chaminade-stl.org and click on the MPM $10,000 Challenge for Haiti article on the homepage.

A statement from Chaminade noted that Haiti has struggled for many years in being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with little to no economy, extremely poor infrastructure and an epidemic of health concerns. "With an estimated 200,000 dead and 1.5 million homeless, it is now up to the global community to step in, show their support and prayers and extend a hand of hope for a brighter future. Please help the Chaminade community extend such a faithful hand."

Students at St. Joseph's Academy have raised $5,000 for Haiti and a family from the school matched that gift. "We have Sisters of St. Joseph working in Haiti, and because our schools is sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph we are joining hand with them to send our money to Haiti," said the principal, Sister Pat Dunphy. "We are now working with Soles for Souls organization and collecting sandals and tennis shoes. St. Joseph's Academy is serious about having its students 'make a profound impact on the world.'"

Students, faculty and staff at Duchesne High School in St. Charles recently raised $1,000 for relief efforts.