Cervical Cancer Screening Program

Partnerships are a key part of making projects successful in Haiti. Before coming here we were contacted by a Dr. from the US who wanted to start a cervical cancer screening program here. We gladly offered to help out with the project. Once we got here we hit the ground running trying to find a place to be able to implement this program. I was then introduced to Dr. Travant a local Haitian doctor who graciously offered to run the program at the hospital she works, Fort St. Michel. After a couple weeks of skyping, meetings, emails, phone calls and fingers crossed that all would go over well we started the screening!

 

When we showed up there was a bit of a mix-up in communication. The women were told to show up on Nov 7^th not today, but hey it’s Haiti! By 1100 after calling the woman they started to arrive. Things here may not always go as you exactly plan, but it all works out in the end! 90 women ended up showing up to get their height, weight, BP taken and to be asked questions about their sexual health. On Friday we saw 42 more ladies. They then will come back on Nov 8^th for the HPV swab; it then gets sent to the lab in Port au Prince and takes about 6-8 weeks to obtain the results. Those who are positive will come back for further testing for cervical cancer. Nov 8^th will also be a time for education on HPV and cervical cancer.

 

The exciting news is that we are able to use money from our donations to fund this entire project! A huge thank you goes out to those who donated to our trip, you are helping women in Haiti to live longer, cancer free lives!

This past week we were able to help start up 2 malnutrition programs in different towns in Cap Haitian. Working alongside the Haitian staff is by far one of the best ways to ensure that our projects are sustainable when we are not here! The first area we visited on Monday was a place called Jolitrou. A team had visited and ran a clinic there in June and saw the immense need as there were many malnourished children. Our goal for this community is to treat 50 children by June. We use the product called Plumpy Nut as you learned about in a previous post. We ended up seeing around 50 children on Monday and admitted 11 into our program. I will give you a little background on how we know whether or not the child needs to be admitted into the program and how the program works.

First off you take their weight and height, then compare it to a chart that has 3 area’s, green, yellow and red. If their weight falls in the green, then they are not malnourished. If it falls between the yellow and the green then they are underweight. If it falls in the yellow or below they are moderately malnourished and if their weight is in the red they are severely malnourished. We then take their arm circumference which can also give us vital information on their state of malnutrition. They then sit down and get their picture taken and get asked an admission questionnaire. This questionnaire asks questions like what do you eat, has any of your children died, do you drink treated water, etc. This helps us understand better ways to help the people in the community and the reasons why their child may be malnourished. The nurses then educate the family about topics including handwashing, nutrition, etc. They are then give so many sachets of plumpy nut which is decided based on their weight. They may have to eat 2-4 of the sachets a day. Also throughout the program they are given a dose of albendazole (treatment for worms), chlorox for treating their water and amoxicillin (antibiotic). The child has to be between the ages of 6-59 months to be eligible for the program.

The child is normally in the program between 8-12 weeks depending on the severity. The goal is that they gain weight and are in the green category for their weight-height ratio. Another goal is that they understand the causes of malnutrition and ways to prevent it from happening again!