By Emilee Shake
Stepping off the plane in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, located on the northern coast of the island, it’s not just the scorching heat that is overwhelming. Just 13 days after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit near the country’s capital Port-au-Prince, supplies had been dumped on the tarmac at the airport. Because of the chaotic state of the country, everything was in disarray, and supplies weren’t being transported to the appropriate places. Several Haitians were scouring through the items, looking for things they could sell on the streets to help them survive.
That’s what Cathy Ochs saw upon arriving in Haiti. Ochs, a nurse and manager at Daviess Community Hospital, has traveled from her home in Cannelburg to Haiti on several previous mission trips, but most recently joined a medical team of 15 who responded to the needs of earthquake victims.
Due to some flight complications, a nine-hour “tap-tap” ride through the mountains was necessary to get to the mission organization’s medical clinic, located in Saint-Louis-du-Nord. A tap-tap could be loosely compared to a taxi cab. It’s usually an old pickup truck, and everyone piles in the bed, pays a fare and rides until they want off, then they tap the side of the truck as an indication for the driver to stop.
The long journey through the mountains ended when the team, made up of various individuals in the medical field from across the United States and Canada, arrived at the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission compound where there is a medical clinic, pharmacy, maternity area, surgery area and eye clinic.
Och’s 10-day mission in Haiti was filled with long days, long nights and little sleep.
The group worked in three main areas: surgery, maternity and-or emergency-type care.
“We were only supposed to see patients with fractures or severe injuries from the quake. However, the Haitians knew there was a medical team there, so everyone came to the mission,” Ochs said.
Despite the fact Saint-Louis-du-Nord is about 114 miles from the country’s capital, people suffering with injuries from the earthquake were showing up in the clinic.
Ochs said no one was sure how they were getting there.
“All of the people were leaving Port-au-Prince to get help and to get away,” she said.
Several of the Haitians who traveled north to escape the destruction of the quake wanted to share their stories. Two sisters received medical attention from the team, one with a fractured pelvis, the other a fractured ankle.
“They were just sitting in their living room talking, and literally, their living room floor opened up. They were in the rubble for two days,” Ochs said sharing their story.
Another girl was carried into the clinic. After being in the rubble for several days, she was found alive, but paralyzed from the waist down.
One girl was about to lose her hand. Because there was a hand surgeon from the University of Arizona on the team, he was able to do bone and skin grafts and save her hand.
A Haitian man who’d sliced his hand with a machete found his way to the clinic. Ochs said he’d gone somewhere to get the wound stitched, but he was unable to move his hand.
“The hand surgeon went in, opened it up and reconnected his tendons,” Ochs said. “Then he was able to move his hand.”
The team performed two Caesarean sections, “one good outcome, one bad outcome,” Ochs said.
“The mom came in, and she was having seizures. We did an emergency C-section on her, and we lost the baby. That was a really tough day,” she said slightly nodding her head.
The team treated individuals requiring various attention, from club feet to hernias.
Because of her experience in the medical field, Ochs easily spotted the differences when traveling from one country to another.
“Everything in the medical field has to be perfect. Everything works together. But in Haiti, nothing works,” Ochs said. “You always have to be creative about how you practice medicine. You just do what you have to do to take care of the patients.”
In addition to seeing the medical world in a new light, Ochs had another revelation. Prior to the trip, she’d thought she could see herself adopting a Haitian child. Now she plans to open her home to young adults seeking higher education in the United States.
“If I adopted a child, it would help one Haitian. If I provided a home for one to come over here and get an education, that could impact a lot of Haitians,” Ochs said.
And that might not be too far off the horizon for Ochs, who has already been in contact with Vincennes University’s Multicultural and International Student Affairs department. On the trip, she connected with one of the interpreters, Wood John, who is trying to get to a university in the U.S. Ochs is helping Wood John get the information and papers he needs to get accepted into VU.
The biggest challenge, Ochs said, will be getting an academic visa for Wood John, and because the state of the Embassy right now, Ochs doesn’t know how long that will take.
“He wants to be a civil engineer,” Ochs said. “I told him, ‘I need to know you are serious about coming here and going back.’”
His response to her: “I want to help my country.”
Wood John is working with a mission organization that is helping him apply and has been in frequent e-mail correspondence with Ochs.
“It’s not about me. It’s about what God’s given me to do, and the passion that I have.
“One pastor down there said, ‘You can’t help everybody, but help the ones you can,’” Ochs said, and that is what she is trying to do.
