Cholera Update

Thanks to your kind donations, we were able to wire $10,000 directly to the village hospital, where, immediately, construction supplies (wood, etc.) were purchased and workers were hired (Haitian workers by the way). And TODAY we are erecting a free-standing cholera treatment clinic, isolated from the regular hospital and clinic. Large army tents (the ones used to house hospital patients in the days after the earthquake) will be erected atop raised, plywood platforms. Elevated latrines are being contstructed, under which large plastic waste containers will prevent cholera-containing human waste from seeping into the ground water.

We have determined that the cholera we are seeing on La Gonave right now has three origins:

the village of Pointe des Lataniers (small, northwest seashore village),

Bodin (small, southwest seashore village),

and the mainland (people who have contracted cholera on the mainland and then traveled over to the island).

As I write, we know of no cases of cholera which have been contracted from the water in the village where our hospital is. This, of course, is very good. But as long as there is even one active case, a wider epidemic remains a worrisome possibility. People in the village are, understandably, a bit worried (and perturbed) that the cholera patients are coming to their village to the hospital. Hence the isolation hospital.

Please keep La Gonave in your prayers. They don't deserve this.