Little by little

My sister Katie and I outside the disco in town.

I was just about to sit down and write up this blog when a group from the Eastern Virginia Medical School stopped by to check on the program. I went over the program background and mission with them and handed off a few scalpels for their clinic. The group said they had some members interested in learning more about our work. We are always open to having guests in our class or on our mobile clinic, so I am hoping I will be seeing their faces this coming week.

A few of the students posing by our Pink Jeep.

I had two very productive and informative Skype calls this week - one about data collection and the other about our social media tools.

The first conversation was with a young woman who is focusing her Master's thesis on improving our data collection methods. She has a brilliant idea in using a camera. Her suggestion is that we take pictures of a scantron-type form that lists our data collection questions. For example, we might want to know how many times a mother has come to our mobile clinic for prenatal care. After taking a snapshot of the form, the picture can be uploaded into a program that reads the scantron. This way, no one has to sit at the computer punching in numbers. We will see what happens with this!

Students coming back from the hospital - outside of the
MFH Guesthouse.

My second conversation was with a woman who spent two weeks reviewing our social media tools - Facebook, Twitter, and our website. Though she has never been to Haiti to see our program, she heard about it through a friend and decided to volunteer her time to help us improve our monthly donations through our media services. She has some excellent suggestions (some of which I am already trying to execute) and will hopefully be helping us with our Spring Fundraiser. Very exciting!

A good portion of my week was also devoted to planning for the MFH sponsored "Training for Matròn Trainers." MFH is partnering with MSPP (the Haitian Ministry of Health) in offering a week course in training nurses and midwives in matròn training. Matròns are Haiti's home birth attendants. They do approximately 80-85% of Haiti's births because most women prefer to birth at home. This training will allow someone to lead the 20-week supplementary course that we are now offering to matròns in the area. Since graduating one class of matròns, we have found that more women are coming to the hospital because the matròn ESCORTS them to the hospital. So, these people are a critical part of our program because they are increasing the referrals to the hospital and saving lives. They also challenge the cultural beliefs with their increased knowledge in maternal health care and work to improve the lives of the women in their community. We are extremely grateful and indebted to the work they do.

Giving our busy mom Ina May a break!

Not a moment to waste! We have two sections of our sixth class of midwives running simultaneously and are already planning for a two-day HIV training to be held in April. I also have a day-long meeting to go to on Thursday with the Central Plateau's Department of Health. Thanks for keeping in the loop!