Judithe Accepted for Heart Surgery (Plus the Story We Don’t Want to Know)!--March 2015
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| Judithe |
Judithe is a 25-year-old Haitian lady who works as a midwife in Haiti. And Judithe has a serious heart problem. She was referred to Haitian Hearts by a very caring Canadian midwife colleague of hers in Haiti named Sarah.
Judithe grew up in northern Haiti and is a member of a large extended family with many brothers and sisters. She moved to Port-au-Prince in 2009 planning on studying accounting. However, after the earthquake in 2010, she received a scholarship to go to nursing school in Senegal.
Sarah states that after Judithe arrived in Senegal, the nursing program was full so they put her in a midwifery program which was a “clear act of divine intervention because Judithe LOVES being a midwife and she is amazing at it”. Judithe studied for three years in Senegal and is now practicing in southern Haiti.
Judithe first learned that she had a heart condition in 2008 when she went to a Haitian hospital with a fever. The Haitian physician diagnosed her with a heart problem which turned out to be leakage from her mitral valve.
Judithe takes medication for her heart but for years she has been unable to find anywhere to accept her for heart surgery. She is short of breath now and not able to function well. Her current echocardiogram shows severe leakage of her mitral valve but it still appears to be repairable.
The good news is that Judithe was just accepted in the States for heart surgery. If all goes well, she will soon be back in Haiti providing prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care and education to the women in her community.
Is there a story here beyond Judithe? Many people in Haiti have Judithe’s same problem and most never have the benefit of surgery. Is there anything Peoria can learn from Judithe’s situation? I believe so. It has to do with unethical behavior in Peoria between the big business people in our community (unfortunately brought to national view just recently) and the ramifications of this behavior.
Haitian Hearts has been very fortunate to have had 200 Haitian patients accepted for surgery…most of them have been heart surgeries with a plethora of pathology. These patients have been babies, toddlers, children, adolescents, and young adults.
OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center has denied all Haitian Hearts patients from coming or returning to OSF in Peoria for over a decade. This negligent action by OSF has been destructive in many ways.
OSF built the Milestone Project in the mid-2000’s, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They valued this more than saving Haitian lives. Bricks and mortar were more important to OSF them than young Haitians. (And when Haitians die in Haiti it doesn’t make the news or embarrass OSF in any way. It is quiet and who cares besides the patient’s own family? And which Haitian family living in the slum will hire a malpractice lawyer?) This attitude by OSF of course goes against the philosophy of the OSF Sisters and the teachings of Catholic Church regarding Catholic hospitals and serving the poor. (Unfortunately the Sisters lost control of their own hospital years ago and Bishop Jenky has thrown his support to our local ruling party of businessmen and women full of cronyism and corruption.)
Children’s Hospital of Illinois (CHOI) has been in disarray. OSF will appoint a new interim Chief Executive Officer of Children’s very soon but Children’s Hospital of Illinois has lost many of its specialists who offered specialized care to the children of central Illinois. Two prominent pediatric heart surgeons left CHOI recently. In other words, Children’s is not functioning like it should be.
So by barring Haitian Hearts patients has anyone else lost (besides Haitian children) because of mismanagement at the top of OSF?
University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria (UICOMP) medical students have lost because they can no longer examine patients with heart problems not commonly seen in our population of patients. Future generations of OUR kids could have benefitted as the knowledge and skills of the young medical students would have improved by examining Haitian patients.
The resident physicians both at Unity Point-Methodist and OSF-CHOI no longer can examine or learn from Haitian patients either. Examining mannequins with simulated heart murmurs and conditions is not like examining a live breathing patient with a real problem. Their education here in Peoria is not as good as it could have been.
There is a cardiology fellowship now at OSF and I am sure that the fellows would benefit treating Haitian patients. They would perform diagnostic and therapeutic tests such as echocardiograms and interventional cardiac catheterization. Caring for these patients would have allowed them to become better cardiologists. (Many times over the last twenty years physicians have said to me that they have “never seen a case like this (Haitian) patient.”)
What about CHOI’s wonderful cardiovascular ICU nurses? Would they become better nurses caring for Haitian kids in intensive care after surgery? You bet they would. And down the road they would take care of YOUR kids with more expertise.
And what about the ethics of caring for Haitians? Ethics is something that can be taught to doctors and nurses by example. But when OSF’s ethics experts run and hide from their own Administration, that doesn’t help.
Haiti has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Judithe is a midwife who has the potential to help thousands of mothers in labor over the course of her career. And she has the ability to save many of their lives and their baby’s lives if she survives her own heart problem. OSF needs to understand that there is a huge “ripple-effect-of-goodness” if they help just one Haitian.
We all know that OSF’s Administration is not ready for such thought. Money is key. And the Sisters and Bishop keep their heads in the sand as do many in the community who should have reacted to this discrimination against Haitians years ago. Silence is a dangerous tool. Too bad for all of us.
John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org
Comments in 2015--
Eu gostaria de fazer parte do grupo de pessoas que são enviadas para ajudar os mais necessitados, onde quer que seja. Como faço para ajudar?
To everyone who love helping others, I say may God bless you always.
Hello Dr. Carroll,
Thank you for the great work that you do. I have had the recent experience with Haitian Hearts and was an ICU nurse. It was a wonderful experience to part of this . My family is from Haiti and I have only been there a handful of times. I went last year because my great aunt past away, but during the trip I was captivated by the people. It touched me and I felt so blessed to be amongst them. Through everything they are caring and full of strength. Thank you again.
If ever I can be of some help to you, please feel free to reach out.
God Bless
Dr. Carroll,
I agree with your comments about what these Haitian patients have to offer physicians-in-training, cardiology fellows, intensive care unit nurses and those who are responsible for the academic training of medical students and physicians. The ivory tower academics pride themselves in robotic teaching stations with mannequins and iPads used in electronic medical records. Patients are no longer examined since there is more hands-on contact with instruments of EHR. Do medical students and residents still use stethoscopes? Do patients really get examined anymore? All of us can remember being called to a room to examine a patient with a physical finding that may be important in their future care of patients. Grand rounds on Fabry’s disease, inulinomas or obscure infectious diseases will not help a physician in this country as much as the physical findings of a patient with endocarditis, cardiomyopathy, etc. The “teaching centers” may have lost their true focus in their calling, medical or religious. In the end, we will all be held responsible to a higher authority than a Board of Directors, Bishop or those responsible for the care of “the least.”
“Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.” What more incentive does one need? If one needs a source or reference to the aforementioned quote, I rest my case!
You are a better physician than me and I do thank God for you showing me, through your efforts, the real importance and meaning of being called “Doctor.” I have not met many in my career to whom I would say that.
John L. Luetkemeyer, M.D.