By Natasha Ridout | HHA Volunteer Village Co-ordinator
It has been a busy few months at the rehab centre, with the facility being at full capacity of patients solidly for three months. The rehab centre have also benefitted from several international volunteers over the past few months, including a physiotherapist from the UK and two occupational therapists who work for our partner organisation THHT (The Haiti Health Trust). They provided staff with training in relation to stroke patients, including new assessment techniques to test patients’ cognitive abilities. A team from the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation also spent a period of three weeks at the rehab facility, particularly focusing on adapting and fixing wheelchairs with better positioning for all patients, and helping with the physiotherapy for outpatients which can number up to forty in one morning. We are also excited to welcome back Sibille, a physiotherapist from Switzerland who has worked with the rehab centre since the beginning, and who is now living and working in Haiti for a year. We are so grateful to all our supporters, those who are able to come to the hospital and serve our staff and patients in person, but also those who enable them to come and commit to supporting the hospital from afar as without you, we would be unable to continue to change the lives of patients, for example that of Jean-Pierre.
Jean-Pierre, who has been a patient in the rehab centre for the past 16 months after a motor accident rendered him paralysed, is moving into a house mid-December, just in time for Christmas. The staff helped him to find a house in the local area, and have helped with adaptations so it is fully wheelchair accessible. Although we’re sure he’ll be back in the rehab centre for the Christmas party – patients have been making decorations for more than a week, and are looking forward to sharing a meal and music together this week.
On behave of all of our team, and the patients we are privileged to serve, thank you for making 2014 a wonderful year. We hope you will feel encouraged by the difference you have made. May we close by wishing you a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
With much love and thanks
All the HHA team
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
