Home from Haiti
UCC’s Director of Nursing volunteers her time to a nation in need

By Courtney McHaffie · The Mainstream
Published February 23, 2010

Sandy Hendy, the Director of Nursing for Umpqua Community College, arrived back from her volunteer stint in Haiti on Tuesday, Feb. 16. She volunteered with “Project Helping Hands” for two weeks and was stationed in Carreabon, the heart of Port-au-Prince, near the epicenter.

“I entered nursing to provide help and healthcare to all walks of life,” said Sandy Hendy. “This was an opportunity to utilize my skills as a nurse where they were needed most.”

She and 20 other medical personnel -- doctors, pharmacists, paramedics, student nurses and nurses -- worked independently in self-contained mobile clinics that were utilized to access Haitians who were unable to receive any medical care due to the overwhelming amount of injured people in local hospitals. Some hospitals were demolished from the earthquake itself. As a nurse, she saw and treated everyone that came into the mobile clinics via uses of a thermometer and stethoscope and other medical tools. Sandy and her group were provided plenty of supplies to help provide medical attention to all different types of people and then the patients were placed in tents.

Prior to the earthquake, the impoverished nation of Haiti has had issues with illness and life expectancy, with the average life expectancy being just over 52 years. Only 1 in 10,000 people in the nation had access to a physician and there is a high mortality rate of tuberculosis and HIV/Aids. Infant mortality is especially high, with a rate of 12% of infants dying before they reach the age of one, and 1/3 of children dying before they reach the age of 5. 1,400 out of 100,000 women in Haiti died from maternal problems.

Always been --Less than 45% of the population in the country has access to drinkable water and more than 63% of the population suffered from malnutrition because the country could not cultivate enough food to feed everyone.

It is projected that more than 200,000 people were killed in the 7.0 size earthquake and more than 300,000 people were injured and the number keeps rising as search and rescue teams keep finding people who were buried under the rubble. There may never be an accurate number of the injured and dead Haitians due to the enormous demolition that the earthquake caused the nation’s infrastructure.

Estimations of the damage range from $7.2 billion dollars up to $13.2 billion dollars, when the original estimation was $5 billion. The earthquake has left 1.2 million people homeless all around the country.

Sandy heeds to anyone that is interested in volunteering that you go with a group that has connections in the country and that there is someone available for coordination once you are in the foreign country and you may consider finding an organization that shares a mission that you believe in.

“Project Helping Hands” is organizing to send additional medial teams, but it is difficult to organize places to stay, transportation, and in-country contacts.

When asked, “what was the greatest memory that she has from her trip”, Sandy responded:
“The smiles of the Haitian people… the overwhelming thankfulness and appreciation that they showed us, plus the new group of peers and friends made from the team.”