Physicians for Peace Maintains Commitment to Sustainable Help in Haiti

NORFOLK, VA (12/10/2010)(readMedia)-- Nearly a year after a 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti, Physicians for Peace (PFP) continues to support its in-country partners in Port-au-Prince and Deschapelles through volunteer service, financial contributions and in-kind donations of medical supplies and equipment.

"The earthquake last January created an immediate and dramatic need for prosthetic, orthotic and rehabilitation services in a country that was already under-served in those areas," said Brig. Gen. Ron Sconyers (USAF, Ret.), PFP's president and CEO. "Because of our established partnerships in Haiti, we were able to respond efficiently to immediate needs after the earthquake, but we're also working to establish sustainable programs that will provide the education and training that Haitian healthcare professionals need to meet the long-term needs of the country's disabled population."

Partnerships and collaboration remain at the heart of PFP's work in Haiti. As part of the Haitian Amputee Coalition, PFP recruits and sends volunteer physical therapists to work with amputees and disabled patients at the Hanger Clinic at Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles. Between March and November 2010, these volunteers contributed more than 1,700 hours of service to Haiti's disabled population. In that time, they completed more than 1,300 patient visits and helped 635 amputee patients learn to "walk free" with new prosthetic limbs.

"The work Physicians for Peace is doing is pretty incredible," said Sue Klappa, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the physical therapy program at St. Catherine University in Minneapolis and a PFP volunteer in Haiti in October 2010. "Everyone brings their gifts and talents to the clinic for the benefit of the patient. I was blessed to be able to work there, with so many gifted people from all over the world."

Tom Meenzhuber, a physical therapist from Santa Maria, Calif., who volunteered in May and will return to Haiti in January, offered a similar perspective: "I really felt like I was here for a reason and definitely was able to help people and see the results of all the hard work; theirs and mine."

In addition to sending volunteer physical therapists, PFP has also responded to its partners' identified needs for specific material goods. The organization collected and sent six shipments of medical supplies and equipment to Haiti this year; the total value of the donated supplies exceeded $350,000. Shipments included prosthetic and orthotic equipment, mobility devices, mattresses and eyeglasses, as well as 30 movable hospital beds from Stryker, a leading medical technology company. To help meet the country's needs in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, PFP also sent more than $100,000 in direct cash investments to its long-term Haitian partners in their recovery efforts.

As the year ends, PFP remains focused on efforts to provide sustainable training opportunities to Haitians. To that end, PFP is currently working with the Don Bosco University in El Salvador and Haiti's Ministry of Health to establish a national training and certification program for the Haitian prosthetic and orthotic community. The program will enroll local Haitian prosthetic technicians in a distance learning course in their native language of Creole, and will be complemented with regular, side-by-side training with professionals from the U.S. A parallel track started on October 13, 2010 in the Dominican Republic.

For more information on PFP's work in Haiti, please visit http://www.physiciansforpeace.org.

ABOUT PHYSICIANS FOR PEACE

Physicians for Peace is an international non-profit organization that mobilizes volunteer healthcare professionals to assist developing nations with unmet medical needs and scarce resources. Through effective, hands-on medical education and training, clinical care and donated medical supplies, Physicians for Peace develops long-term, sustainable, replicable, and evidence-based programs to help partner nations build medical capability and capacity to help themselves. Since 1989 Volunteers for the 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization have conducted medical missions in more than 60 countries. With its headquarters in Norfolk, Va., Physicians for Peace has programs in 22 countries and offices in Manila, the Philippines and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In 2009, the organization celebrated its 20th Anniversary. For more information, go to: www.physiciansforpeace.org

Posted Friday December 10, 2010 at 08:00 pm by Physicians for Peace
Last Updated Tuesday January 11, 2011 at 11:32 am