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WILKES-BARRE — Wake up in an orphanage at 7 a.m. By 8:30, there are 50 to 100 people waiting in line to be seen. They come seeking help for their troubles. Basic equipment and supplies are at hand. And it’s only the beginning of the day; the work is not done until dusk.

For 11 people traveling from Northeastern Pennsylvania, a trip to Haiti is an inspiring experience for the group and the people they are helping.

In conjunction with nonprofit Amer-Haitian Bon Zami and its House of Hope orphanage, a medical team consisting of three practicing physician assistants, seven PA students and a coordinator traveled to the Caribbean country July 18-23 to provide medication, medical assistance and education to dwellers in one of the world’s poorest countries.

AHBZ coordinator Kristen Chapin, of Mifflinville, has traveled to Haiti for over a decade.

“The food, the music and the soul of the people is what I really fell in love with,” she said in a telephone interview Saturday.

She started with her church at first, but was later approached by AHBZ to lead a medical team there.

“I didn’t know anything about medicine,” Chapin said. AHBZ wanted her to get area dentists, doctors and other needed experts to volunteer their time for those in need.

Chapin asked her PA if he would help, and he referred her to his former preceptor, William Reynolds, PA-C, of Dallas.

Reynolds, the clinical director of the PA program at King’s College, later asked other practicing PAs and students to do medical mission work with the orphanage in the capital of Port-au-Prince. The first group was formed in 2016. While the trip is not officially associated with King’s College, many PA students and alumni have taken part.

“This is our fourth year. In the first year, we only sent one team down, but we’ve sent two teams a year since then,” said Reynolds, who has taken three trips with the program, including with the July medical team. “The teams average about 10 to 15 people, depending on what group and who we can get together.”

Three days of the five-day mission consisted of seeing residents and some of the orphans from House of Hope, an all-girl orphanage with ages 3-14. Other orphanages also brought children to see the team. The other two days were for traveling, going by bus from Wilkes-Barre to New York City to take a direct flight to Port-au-Prince. The team didn’t pack lightly; 23 suitcases weighing 50 pounds each were filled with medication, basic medical equipment, hygiene kits and food. By the time they saw their last patient, the team had treated 430 people.

“The number of patients we see has increased every trip,” Reynolds said in an interview Thursday. The 2016 group saw 200 patients.

“We’re able to see more people and do more,” he said.

Chapin coordinated the travel arrangements, groceries and local contacts for the teams.

Motivation

Less than a month away from graduating with a master’s degree from King’s, PA students Yardley Phillips, Kayley Spinella and Brianna Gaylets volunteered for the medical mission team in July. Taking what they learned in the classroom into a new environment was a challenge they wanted to take.

“What motivated me mostly would be the privilege that I do have being in the United States, and getting to use what I’ve learned in the past two years and giving that to a country that doesn’t have anything,” said Gaylets, 23, of Royersford, while discussing the trip Friday at King’s Department of Physician Assistant Studies, just a few days before the trio will graduate on Saturday, Aug. 17.

“I’ve always had the desire to go to a third-world country and to help out,” Spinella, 23, of Poughkeepsie, New York. “And now that I’ve had some of the skills that I’ve learned from my teachers and preceptors, I wanted to put all of the knowledge to use. And hopefully I will be about to do the same sort of thing again in the future.”

Phillips, 24, of Dallas, learned about the mission trip when she was a freshman and worked her way to being about of the team. Like Spinella, Phillips also wanted to work in an underprivileged country.

“I had never been exposed to anything like that before,” Phillips said. “And I wanted to see how and what I learned would help me treat people in a situation like that where they didn’t have anything, with limited supplies.”

Getting there

To get to Haiti, each team had to pay $1,000 for transportation, accommodations and other costs. They also needed to collect supplies for patient care packages such as vitamins, medicine, bandages, soaps and toothbrushes. For the participants, that meant creating fundraisers to help them on their journey and patients relying on their help.

“A lot of it was fundraising money and donations,”Gaylets said. “Personally, my gym donated six or seven boxes of vitamins.”

Phillips collected boxes of medical supplies from local pharmacies, and her family helped financially so that she could bring prescription medication. Chapin went across her Bloomsburg-area community and social media, promoting events like bake sales, spaghetti dinners and carnival stands to benefit the missions. For the two medical trips taken this year, Chapin has collected mattresses, bedding, dozens of pillows and water filtration for the orphanages with which they work.

“It was very humbling to me see what the teams are doing and the fundraising are really making a difference for the people there,” Chapin said.

‘Very different medicine’

With no equipment to perform lab work, no x-ray machines and little patient information, the team was required to rely on the supplies they packed in those 23 suitcases. Reynolds said the team treated patients with infectious diseases, skin disorders, aches and pains, and gastrointestinal matters. The team stayed in the House of Hope orphanage in Port-au-Prince’s Taberre commune. The clinic was set up in the orphanage with dozens of patients lined up in the sun, waiting for hours to see a volunteer.

“A lot of these patients have no access at all to health care,” Reynolds said as Haiti is considered to be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. “And even if they do have access, they can’t afford it because it’s the difference between paying for a medication or feeding their family.

Stations inside the orphanage were formed to address residents’ needs, Gaylets said, ranging from pharmacy to patient history and vitals to patient education. A group of interpreters helped the team communicate with the patients, and pill bottles had written instructions in Haitian French Creole. With limited supplies and cultural and language barriers, medical procedures varied from what could be done in the U.S.

“It’s very different medicine. … So everything is based on just a history from the patient and any physical exam we can do.” Reynolds said. “It also limits what we can do with a patient. We’re not doing a lot of real complex medicine. We can only treat simple medical cases. Anything that is more complex we try to identify it and then we try to refer them to whatever services are available in Haiti.”

Each patient seen by the team was given care packages, and a pastor who was present during the three-day clinic prayed with each patient and blessed the packages.

“A lot of them don’t have glasses, so we tried to figured out, based on what we had, if that could help whether it were reading glasses or prescription glasses,” Gaylets said.

Patient education was one of the most important stations of the team’s mission, as the patients would have to care for themselves after the team leaves.

“Not all of those people are exposed to those medications like we are in the United States.” Spinella said. “They may not know how to use Tylenol, Prilosec or something like Tums since there’s not that exposure to that there. You have to go through each medication with them. Not to mention the drugs were not written in English.”

“We had interpreters solely just to tell (the patients) how to take the medications because a lot of them don’t know how to read,” Gaylets said.

Even if some of the patients resold the medicine they were given, the team was thankful to help them in other ways.

“You’re giving all these patients all these medications, and they’re coming in describing things like something like GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) … But even if they’re reselling them and getting money they need for food or clean water to drink, you’re making a difference. No matter what their intentions are, you’re still helping them.”

Patient experiences

For Phillips, Spinella and Gaylets, they will not forget the patients they helped in Port-au-Prince. Some cases could be treated on site, but others were beyond what they could do.

Phillips treated a 7-year-old orphaned girl who had a football-sized, osteosarcoma tumor, a very rare form of bone cancer, on her shoulder blade. The girl may die within the next year.

“I wonder how she is doing a lot,” Phillips said.

Gaylets remembered treating a man in his 20s who was coughing up blood, had significant weight loss and experienced night sweats. The team could not help the young man as they could not perform diagnostic tests. However, they gave him money and referred him to the nearest hospital. In Haiti, hospitals are filled to the max with patients on the weekends and will turn away people. So the young man told the group that he would wait for Monday to go, taking the risk that his condition would worsen.

“We’re not sure if he even made it there, even if it was just the financial means to get him them,” Gaylets said.

“I think it was pretty amazing that I had some patients that came in and asked for very little,” Spinella said. “But what’s little to me means a lot to them.”

One of Spinella’s patients had trouble with his hearing as the result of earwax buildup. With limited supplies, Spinella used a syringe and a curette to clear the blockage.

“I put something together to help him, and he smiled the entire time he was in the care center just by removing wax from his ear,” she said.

An 8-year-old girl visited the clinic alone and possibly suffered from starvation. She was given protein bars and water for her health, and she later told the team through the interpreters that she had been abused.

“I just felt good by the fact that maybe that I didn’t give her any medication, but she can eat for the next two weeks,” Gaylets said.

Chapin has seen the difference the trip have made in the Haitian community. During a visit in May, Chapin saw a young girl from an orphanage with a fungal infection covering her skin. Through donations and fundraising, she brought new bedding and mattresses for the orphanage. When Chapin saw the girl again in July, the infection had significantly lessened.

Bringing it back home

As the young women reflected on the trip, Phillips, Spinella and Gaylets remembered some of the culture shock they encountered in Haiti, from seeing trash in the streets to livestock roaming freely. Driving laws don’t exist there, and they described how vehicles would travel on any side of the road with people jumping in and out of the backs of trucks.

At the end, they saw the professional and personal benefits of going on a medical mission trip like this.

“Really understanding the patient, knowing what they’re going through,” Gaylets said. “Can they really afford this medication? Can we find an alternative? Don’t take for granted that anybody can afford something.”

“The trip made me grateful for things like running water — clean running water — and having clean fruits and vegetables here,” Phillips said. The team used filtered water throughout the trip for brushing their teeth and other actions.

For Chapin, Haiti has a special place in her heart.

“It was very humbling to me see what the teams are doing and the fundraising are really making a difference for the people there,” Chapin said.

“I think when you start to plan for a trip like this, you think you’re doing something to help other

people. But they have taught me about being content at what you have and appreciate it. True joy and peace don’t come from material things,” Chapin said.

A team of three practicing physician assistants, seven PA students and a coordinator traveled from Northeastern Pennsylvania to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for a medical mission trip in July. From left, front row, are Kristin Henchenski, PA-C; Mary Wolf, PA-C; Kayley Spinella, PA-S; William Reynolds, PA-C, clinical director at King’s College. Second row, Yardley Phillips, PA-S; Morgan Garman, PA-S; Brianna Gaylets, PA-S . Third row: Sijo Devasia, PA-S; Bridget Pepe, PA-S. Fourth row: John Yacano, PA-S. Not pictured is Kristen Chapin, coordinator with nonprofit Amer-Haitian Bon Zami.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_Image-1.jpg.optimal.jpgA team of three practicing physician assistants, seven PA students and a coordinator traveled from Northeastern Pennsylvania to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for a medical mission trip in July. From left, front row, are Kristin Henchenski, PA-C; Mary Wolf, PA-C; Kayley Spinella, PA-S; William Reynolds, PA-C, clinical director at King’s College. Second row, Yardley Phillips, PA-S; Morgan Garman, PA-S; Brianna Gaylets, PA-S . Third row: Sijo Devasia, PA-S; Bridget Pepe, PA-S. Fourth row: John Yacano, PA-S. Not pictured is Kristen Chapin, coordinator with nonprofit Amer-Haitian Bon Zami. Submitted photo

Kristen Chapin, standing second from left, coordinator with Amer-Haitian Bon Zami, is seen with some of the members of the medical mission team and the Haitian interpreters who assisted them during the team’s July trip to the Caribbean nation.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/web1_Image-2.jpg.optimal.jpgKristen Chapin, standing second from left, coordinator with Amer-Haitian Bon Zami, is seen with some of the members of the medical mission team and the Haitian interpreters who assisted them during the team’s July trip to the Caribbean nation. Submitted photo
Local medical team travels to Haiti for mission trip

By Tamara Dunn

[email protected]

May trip team:

Sarah McKeown, PA-C; Ryan McKeown; Jaclyn Beck, PA-C; Kiara Lopez de Latchum, PA-C; Kristen Chapin; Amanda Lloyd, PA-S; Ashley Arroyo, PA-S; LeeAnn Chung, PA-S; Jared Laino, PA-C; Alexander Taylor, PA-C; Kayla Maxwell, RN.

Reach Tamara Dunn at 570-991-6117.