Update

We had a good first clinic in Constanza in the Dominican Republic. We are using a community center on the outskirts of Constanza and it looks like a lot of the churches and schools we are use to in Haiti. We have an awesome support group with Maria, a nurse and community activist, and 3 translators to help us each day. We saw 350 patients in 4 days and will hope we can get established and gain the trust of the community we are serving. We will go again in early May or early June to try to avoid the elections that take place in the middle of may.

It felt really good to be active as a group after such a long time. We had our last clinic in Haiti in January of last year. The news from Haiti continues to be tragic and heartbreaking. We will go forward in the Dominican and hope to be able to make a difference.

Thank you to Beth and Raymond for being there to help with the clinics and to help us decide how to go forward. Thank you to all of you for your int

erest in Santo Clinic and the support over all of these years.

Successful Santo Clinic

Our group worked very hard at this new location. We are excited to be able to help this community.
Thank you for your continued support. On our next trip we are working on expanding our area to another community.

Santo Clinic Today!

Beth Walker and Mark Marshall 

Raymond Walker/ working in the pharmacy

Great day today, saw over 100 patients.  Wonderful crew here working together.

Sister Dianne and Dr Moira

Santo Clinic Update

We were finally able to have a week long clinic again.  There have been delays in returning to a routine but it seems that we have worked through that and will hope to get back to a regular schedule with clinics every 3 months.  We are working out of a school in the Denis district east of Port Au Prince and right up against the mountains.  It is  a bit of a challenge to get there but worth the effort.  We were able too see about 1000 patients in 5 clinic days and will hope to continue with those numbers in trips to come.  Dr Pat and Dr Moira from Virginia and Dr Tom and I from here, we have been there a number of times previously with that group and it goes well.  

We are seeing more children than at the previous site, because it is a school and about 1/2 the patients this trip were kids, it has been about 1/3 kids at the other clinic sites.  Lots of malnutrition that we can really help with by giving the albendazole for intestinal parasites and multivitamins.  In our previous sites, we were able to dramatically reduce malnutrition with that program.

Thank you to so so many people that make Santo Clinic possible.

Santo Clinic Bake Sale

All of us involved are concerned about the length of time that we have been gone.  I think the change of scenery will be a good  break for all of us.  Everyone seems anxious to get back on the road to having scheduled and regular clinics. Thank you to all who have supported Santo Clinic over all of these years.Jill Kress Karn, Elija, Emma thank you for the bake sale for Santo Clinic.

We have gone through some changes in the last year in Haiti.  We are no longer staying at the House of Presence and have found a new  place to call home.  The Villa Fransesca is a part of the St Damien Hospital system and has made our time there a lot easier with 24 hour electricity and air-conditioning in the living quarters.  

We have welcomed Drs. Terri and Bob Brennan from Virginia and they will be a part of our medical staff going forward, they prefer to go in January and that has always been a tough slot for me to fill. 

We continue to work with Dr Kress from the University of Chicago and Dr Bracken and Dr Pletke have been going with us twice a year for a long time now.  Dr Rafferty has been on a number of trips as well.

We continue to see about 1000 patients each trip and continue to serve the rural communities that have become our home base.  Sister Diane is a RN and has spent most of her life doing third world medicine and she is an invaluable  part of our efforts with Santo Clinic.

Thank you to the Mille Lacs Health system for their continued support and to the hospital as a whole for all of the support and donations of Crocs and flip flops.  There are a number individuals locally and really across the midwest that continue to support us financially and we had a really dramatic response on the Go Fund Me site last year after the Hurricane.

The next trip is planned for late in January and we have 6 people committed to going, 4 from here, which means 8 suitcases and that means lots of room for the sandals and toys that have been donated.