Return to Haiti

Local physician’s assistant makes her third trip to country

Local physician’s assistant Carolyn Dikes spends time with children at the Orphelinat Refuge des Orphelins during a recent medical relief trip in Haiti. Photo courtesy Andrew Darst

Carolyn Dikes is finally seeing some improvement in the health of Haitians.

Team Redwood members recently returned from another medical relief trip to Haiti — Dikes’ third in less than two years.

Within weeks after an earthquake devastated poverty-striken Haiti in January 2010, the local physician’s assistant volunteered her services with ACTS World Relief, an organization that provides disaster and medical relief all over the world.

She returned in November 2010 with a group of local medical providers  dubbed Team Redwood to travel around the country setting up mobile clinics. They treated people who traveled for miles and waited in line for hours.

Team Redwood decided to “adopt” an orphanage, Orphelinat Refuge des Orphelins (“Shelter of the Orphans” in French), and return each year to care for the orphans medically, mentally and emotionally, and provide them with supplies.

After a year of fundraising, the team returned with Dikes and a few new faces, including a number of medical providers with Open Door Community Health Centers in Humboldt County. Members on the latest trip included Hilary Powell, a physician’s assistant,  and her mother, Kathy Powell of Bend, Ore.; Diana Simpson, a lab technician; Bethany Taylor, an office manager; Jessica Quigley, a medical assistant; Mike Young, a retired engineer and Crescent City  manager, and Art Aten, also retired. They were also accompanied by Andrew Darst, a photojournalist from Minneapolis.

Mike Young, a retired engineer from Crescent City, holds a boy at the Delivrance pour Tous orphanage in Haiti. Courtesy of Carolyn Dikes

About $10,000 was raised in Del Norte, Humboldt and Bend, in addition to donations of luggage, eye glasses, medications and other supplies, Dikes said.

For the next trip, “we need to double that,” she said. “We could do so much more.”

The team was able to purchase food, vitamins, medications, bedding, clothing, shoes, cloth diapers  and school supplies for the orphanages they visited, but that will only last a year, Dikes said.

There were a number of large donations. Lima’s Professional Pharmacy in Eureka donated medications, Open Door donated about $2,500, Seventh-Day Adventist Church gave a significant amount, a private citizen gave $1,000 and another anonymous donor gave nebulizers and medication to treat asthma for the orphanages, a pharmacy and other sites in Haiti. The Del Norte High School football team raised about $1,000 with a tailgate dinner and car wash.

“The three communities were just amazing,” Dikes said.

The team took about 200 pairs of eye glasses that people tried on until they could clearly read words.

“We would watch people be able to see again,” Dikes said, “looking at things with smiles on their faces.”

Rice, beans and oil purchased in Haiti will feed about 80 children at three orphanages for a year, she said.

Team Redwood has also decided to adopt another orphanage, Delivrance pour Tous (“Issued for All” in French) run by a Haitian translator Team Redwood has utilized named Marcos. Marcos told Dikes (whom he calls “Mom”)  he was inspired by the work of the team to take in orphans and find parents for them.

Spending time with the orphans was a source of joy for the team members, Dikes said. They tried to spend as much time as possible playing with the children, she said.

Their mission was to treat the orphans’ medical issues, but it was important to raise their spirits while they were there, she said.

“Every time we would leave to go to another place (from the orphanage), it would tear our hearts out,” Dikes said.

Two children at Orphelinat Refuge des Orphelins (ORO) died since Team Redwood’s last visit, one of cholera and the other of malnutrition and worms.

While the medical providers addressed people’s immediate problems, Young and Aten were fixing one of the causes of sickness in Haiti: contaminated water.

Young and Aten built a chlorinator for the water system at one orphanage and fixed the chlorinator at another. The orphanages now have clean instead of contaminated water that had been making the children sick.

Young has lent his engineering skills for missions all over Latin America and Africa.

“Unsafe drinking water is one of the biggest problems,” Young said about worldwide concerns. “Children die every day from something that is preventable.”

Young also inspected the water systems at a hospital and university in Haiti and gave them recommendations.

The overall health of Haitians has improved since last year, Dikes said.

Haiti has been rebuilding from the earthquake,  constructing building and fixing roads, Dikes said.

However, thousands are still living in tent cities and the refugee camp, where people have settled into permanent residency, she said.

In Cabaret, a seaside village Dikes first visited last November, she saw many of the same patients.

“It was really fun, we recognized each other,” she said. “It’s like I’m their primary care provider.”

Dikes hopes to raise at least $20,000 for supplies for the next trip in a year. She’d like to buy more supplies in Haiti to support its economy.

“It goes so far in Haiti,” she said.

To help continue Team Redwood’s efforts to care for Haitians, donate money to Team Redwood at North Valley Bank, 1492 Northcrest Drive.