The Orphanage

 

Luke and Maria

Saturday, April 01, 2006

The Haitian Orphanage

Yesterday Maria and I visited an orphanage here in PAP. There are 90 children in the orphanage which has two buildings located about one block apart. The “new” building has had three hours of electricity since the Haitian presidential elections on February 7, 2006. It has no generator yet, so kerosene lamps are used at night for light. This building is the home for approximately 50 toddlers and babies. The other building has older children.

A young mother came to the gate three days ago. She explained that she just delivered a baby, cut the cord herself, and swaddled up the baby in a towel. The young mom explained that she has no means to care for the newborn. The manager of the orphanage accepted this baby boy who appears perfect. He just was created and has no marks on him, no impetigo, no hair loss from the unrelenting fungal infections that destroy Haitian kids' scalps. He survived his delivery without a Lamaze class, a midwife, a doctor, or anyone except his young mom who did all the right things. He has not been put down yet in the Haitian dirt with its plethora of microbes waiting to attack. And he has avoided the mosquito with it’s malarial parasite and virus which causes dengue fever. Most importantly, he doesn’t yet know he has been abandoned by his birth mom who has absolutely no means to care for him. 

The orphanage is staffed by Haitian “nannies” who feed the children, bathe them, wipe their noses, change their diapers, and wash their clothes. And this is good, not only for the children, but for the nannies as well who have a paying job. 

Last month, in February, a pregnant lady fell in Port au Prince and went into premature labor. She delivered a 1.2 kg baby girl who was put in a neonatal unit in a local community hospital. The baby had a gestational age of 6.5 months. 

Well, the baby ran up an $800 dollar bill and the mother, of course, could not pay it. The hospital told the mother that if she did not pay the bill, they would put her baby up for adoption. The mother showed up at the door of the orphanage and explained the situation to the managers. The managers talked to the administrator of the hospital who cut the bill in half. The orphanage managers then paid $400 dollars to get the baby, gave it back to the mother, and the mother is working off the bill each day as a nanny in the orphanage. 

She brings the 2-month-old baby girl with her to the orphanage. And she is very happy to have her baby who is gaining weight while she retains her dignity by working for the people that saved her baby from adoption.

This building also houses a boy and a girl from the province who were sent into the capital from different families who have no means to care for the children. Both children are five years old and are severely anemic. The little girl has a hemoglobin of 6 and the little boy’s hemoglobin is 5. The children walk slowly like shy poor little Haitian kids always walk. Neither say anything but do not appear afraid.

Both children happen to have heart murmurs. But the murmurs appear to be secondary to malnutrition, anemia, and parasites. In other words, their murmurs are due to poverty and would go away if they had  food replete with iron and had their parasites treated. Here at the orphanage they both like their diets and take their iron supplements very well. 

Not having enough to eat in 2006 is immoral. The median annual income in Miami-Dade County per family is $35,900. The average income in Haiti per person each year is estimated to be about $200. (Median and average are not the same, but one can see the gross inequality between US and Haitian people, even if the units are different.)

Comments in 2020--

• The orphanage in this post is H.I.S Home for Children run by Hal and Chris Nungester.

• We moved Luke from Grace Children's Hospital to H.I.S. Home in 2005. We will always be grateful for the home the Nungesters provided Luke while we completed 20 months of paperwork and struggled through the adoption bureaucracy.