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Haiti Update
By Dr. Tobias Bauer
New projects in Haiti.
More than 18 Months after the earthquake, Haiti was permanently hit by other desasters like, cholera, hurricanes and flooding and didn’t reach a quiet time, we are asking what is going on with this hardly proved country?
In mid June, there was the conference of the Oral Health Coalition in Haiti, one more reason to make the trip to Port au Prince. As the situation is now more clear and we can recommend volunteers to go to Haiti for a project, there were much more meetings and conferences with the haitian dentists to find out the best possibilities to build up an international dental haitian community. As there are only a few dental volunteer projects in Haiti, we will find out more. And therefore we want to give suggestions where volunteers can stay and where they could do their job. Our project is moving forward and the network is growing day by day. In Port au Prince, there are some recommendable hostels where you always find an international community, easy to get in contact for exchange and friendship. There are also some existing dental stations, mostly connected with a health center run by an international NGO. More health centers are under construction around Port au Prince and also in remote areas.This will create more possibilities for the future.
The conference of the Oral Health Coalition in Haiti was a very pleasant and fruitfull meeting inside the dental school, chaired by the Deans Dr. Sammy Prophete and Dr. Jaques Denis. Tom Ritter from Baltimore, together with Suzette Stines from Chadbourne NC, one the “voices” of OHCH quoted the progress of the situation. It was also to the benefit of every participant, that the local representatives of WHO and PAHO had sent delegates which will lead us to a more intensive cooperation in the future.
As there were also haitian students and young dentists invited, we got some contacts we never had before and we also learned a lot about the problems and needs of the start up generation.
Basically, they need a loan of about 10,000 USD to buy the mostly needed technic. For this amount they could get a used American, Mexican or Brasilian chair, a lamp, a compressor and a dental x-ray. Everything eles is regarded as luxury. After the four years of study, the students have to serve a one year civil service at a public station. Therefore they earn 125 USD.
When we visited the dental school, there was a lot of progress to be seen: Henry Schein installed 20 new chairs which had been donated by the New York Dental Schools. A digital x-ray system is planned and there are also more and more sterilisators. A phantom student training room has been newly created
Another “mostly need” thing is science transfer. The haitian dentists are really keen to get more input from the international dental society. As we never travel with emtpy hands to Haiti, I could hand out dental books, which had been donated by ADI honorary lifetime fellow Dr. h.c. Horst-Wolfgang Haase, chief editor of Quintessenz publishing company.
Being in contact with the local dentists during our visit we learned a lot of the needs of the population. A big challenge will be to create joined groups of haitian and international dentists to visit the refugee camps, schools and orphanage homes to train them in oral health. According to our experiences, we are on the way to build up the dental network: foreign dentists are invited for volunteering and educating haitian staff and dentists as well as the population. We will support haitian dentists in giving free medical care to the needed, but we also have to keep in mind, that a haitian dentist has to survive with the fees they can earn for the dental treatment.
The last proof to document the need of support was quoted again by Tom Ritter. He worked for some days together with his wife Carol, an ob-gyn doc also from Baltimore in a local hospital:” I’ve never seen so much cancer in this stage in all my professsional career and I’m a dentist now for more than 30 years. In fact, this is a very sad matter and volunteer works are often confronted with cases in very late stages. And as there is no radio or chemotherapy the consequences are easily imaginable. It shows; as dentists are highly needed as oral doctors and not as specialists for bleeching and veneering.
~Dr. Tobias Bauer
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PROGRAMS: VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT
