Mercy Trucks at the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

The organizations founder Roy Dixon, had only recently returned after 10 month in West Africa setting up a new Hospital in Guinea Bissau and two more Mercy Truck mobile medical clinics for Sierra Leone and Senegal. Mercy Trucks had recently been re-filling their warehouse near Hexham with medical, dental and educational equipment ready for the next three trucks and a forty foot shipping container heading out to West Africa in March. These latest mobile medical units are for Liberia and Guinea Conakry. They will be providing day to day medical and dental care to the poor and often in war ravaged areas. The mobile Mercy Truck units act as a stepping stone into building up permanent medical infrastructure. Roy said “it broke my heart this year seeing so many young people that should have been out working but were instead crippled with Polio, so by the end of this year we will be utilizing the five Mercy Trucks throughout West Africa as the beginning of a new rapid deployment immunization / epidemic prevention service. This is to fight back against the outbreaks of typhoid, tetanus, whooping cough, cholera and Polio” Mercy Trucks mobile medical units will be based in Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone. They will carry out their day-to-day work, providing a platform for volunteers to show the love of Jesus in a practical way through providing day to day medical and dental care. Then when it looks like an epidemic is starting to break out in an area, the closest Mercy Truck to that region can spring into action and carry our large-scale vaccinations. Other Mercy Trucks from neighboring regions/countries can be called in if necessary. One of the problems at the moment in many of these countries is that they don’t have the logistics for such events and this is why so many are suffering immediate physical and then longer-term economic hardship.  Volunteers from Hexham General, the Freeman Hospital and Hexham Community Church in Hexham, England gave their time to help locally based organization Mercy Trucks prepare and pack much needed medical equipment for the next three trucks and a 40 foot container destined for West Africa, the warehouse in Hexham UK already had in stock items such as new water purification equipment, medical supplies and orthopedic equipment. Roy was running around the UK stocking up on surgical equipment and collecting two aesthetic machines when he received communications from colleagues who were already working in Saint Marc in Haiti when the earthquake struck. Coincidently, earlier this year Mercy Trucks Americas was set up. A paramedic unit was purchased by Mercy Trucks Americas from an Ambulance Service in Pennsylvania and had been overhauled to serve as a multi-platform mercy vehicle. Jeff Colker and his team got this Truck ready in America and had been waiting to place the truck to plant a new Mercy Trucks ministry when the devastating Earthquake hit Haiti.
 Saint Marc is about 60 miles to the North of the epicenter of the earthquake. Masses of people are now overwhelming the local hospital in Saint Marc and the injured are now filling up the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base.  With the help of British Airways, Roy flew out via Heathrow with this much needed equipment from the warehouse near Hexham. After arriving they loaded up the Mercy Truck in Pennsylvania and then drove down through the USA to Miami to get a ferry directly down to the port of Saint Marc avoiding delays at Port-au-Prince.  Roy stated ‘our friends in Haiti are desperate for the equipment we had in Hexham. It is extremely upsetting and stressful not only on the injured but also on the medical volunteers undertaking operations such as amputations without an aesthetic machine or the basic equipment and supplies’. Roy said “because of financial problems, this is a horrible dilemma now to be faced with, trying to be able to quickly equip the hospital where our colleagues are working in Haiti, as this may delay our shipments for the three hospitals we are supporting in West Africa” He said; this much needed equipment will not only be being used to provide operations in the short term but also as in other previous Mercy Truck responses such as the Tsunami in Sri Lanka, Eastern Europe and West Africa, these mobile Mercy Truck units will be used as a stepping stone into building up permanent infrastructure. One thing I did not expect was to be delayed by the snow when driving the truck through the northern states down from New York to Miami. And then delayed again as we waited for more aid to fill the ship. The ship left with 7 empty places remaining, I found this to be a sad situation. The cargo of medical supplies and equipment from Mercy Trucks were only one of 5 vehicles with aid on this, the first shipment into the port of Saint Marc. We fought and eventually got the ambulance with all the equipment out of the port tax-free. This means that a system is now in place for other aid to come in on a tax-free basis into Saint Marc. Everything was taken to the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base and we all prayed over it, this was a great moment and this is a piece of a jigsaw that fits in to many of the visions and projects here. There are many doctors here who were desperate for more equipmentand supplies. They just moved all the patients from the makeshift hospitalin the playing field at the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) base, using pickup trucks and placed them in the new hospital that is only half ready. There are some terrible injuries here and many of the people are getting infections because they have not had their bandage changed since the day they were put on immediately after the earthquake.  There is a massive movement of people from Port au Prince up to saint Marc. Wound care and infection control will be the main focus over the next couple of weeks. After setting up the equipment and supplies from the ambulance into the new hospital and working in Saint Marc for a few days we then went off down to Port au Prince where four medical teams worked from the paramedic unit.  Three are able to use the mobile first aid boxes (plastic tool boxes from B&Q) and get replenished from the ambulance) and one team will stay with me in the paramedic unit/ambulance for the more severe cases. Those we can’t treat, I take to the new hospital. There is a great team here and these supplies from Hexham and our ambulance from the US have been such a blessing. The ambulance has been so busy as there was no ambulance at all in the town of Saint Marc and now we have another 40,000 refugees many of them with injuries that have migrated up from Port au Prince. The medical equipment we brought over has also been a blessing as the doctors and surgeons are able to now get going with more complicated procedures at the new clinic at Saint Marc. It is interesting being an ambulance driver here, there are no road rules so you just have to push your way through the traffic. We are working 4 days a week in Port au Prince and 3 days a week in Saint Marc. Wound care and infection control is our main focus as many of the dressings have not been changed since the day they were first put on.  I know that you don’t here much on the news now about Haiti but it feels like a real shake up and re-birth has started here. There are some good things going on here such as the three day national prayer and fasting, this is a great step forward for a country that was steeped in voodoo, satanic worship and sacrifices.  I have been blown away by the hard work and the dedication of the medical volunteers here. All the surgeons, doctors and nurses on our team not only volunteer, but they pay their own way, flights, transportation, food etc. They all pay to make this happen and many have even given their own blood and some are applying to adopt some of the orphaned babes, that is what I call dedication. Mercy Trucks have been getting calls from the UN for emergency ambulance work up at Saint Marc, as it is/was the only ambulance in that region. Unfortunately, I am down in Port au Prince with the ambulance at the moment hosting mobile medical teams in tent cities. I had to rush a patient to the tent hospital at the airport in Port au Prince today. It is so impressive how quickly this was set up the operations that these medical volunteers are able to perform here is incredible; they have saved so many lives.  Something else that is mind blowing is how well organized things are here. It is true that Port au Prince is getting most of the help and in many of the outlying and hard to reach places, people are still dying because they have still had no help at all. This is sad, but it is a testimony to man’s humanity for fellow man and the love of Jesus that people have in their hearts, when you come here and see these people give so much and also in the way that everyone is working together. The UN have been a great help to us in providing armed guards (blue berry peace keepers) to guard our ambulance supplies and equipment when we have needed them at night or for crowd control/security through the day. Tomorrow night I will be taking the ambulance back up to Saint Marc to continue doing ambulance work for the UN, YWAM (Youth With A Mission) and the two hospitals as well as mobile clinics. Today I was working with doctors from Cuba, Canada, America, England and Panama. There is such a good working relationship here between all nations working together to lift up one nation that is hurting. The people are so thankful for any help that we are able to give them.  The central Police station in Port au Prince is being used as a hospital. Some of our team even performed an operation on the chief’s desk. Everyone is working well together, the police, the army, the US military, the UN and the many different originations are all working together and inter-supporting each other, there is a great atmosphere of international teamwork. One of the adult patients left the ward today and she took one of our Mercy Trucks bed sheets. I said in a disapproving voice, is she taking that home. The nurse turned to me and said, “that is her home, she has lost all her family and her home has gone” all this lady has now is one of our bed sheets to live under. Another nurse on one of the other teams told me today that an old man who had been waiting in one of the queues holding two very young children in the scorching sun for hours came to her and said “please help me” he was crying, saying that he has lost his wife, his son in law, and his daughter, (the mother of the two young children) He said my house is flattened, I have no food, no shelter or water, I have no way of looking after these two children, please take them for me. He, like many thousands of others had to be turned away from yet another queue, as we just don’t have the resources. I can’t help but get very emotional here, it is pretty tough mentally. As I am writing this tonight, I herd the children singing in the makeshift hospital. I went over to see them as I have been doing, but last night I couldn’t cope when I was holding a baby who’s mother died. The grandmother had been feeding him on sugary water from a spoon for two weeks, he is so emaciated this little baby nearly died. Just now, I had to come back out of the children’s ward. I go in and tickle the children and make funny faces and make them laugh. One little girl gave me a beautiful smile; I then noticed that her leg had been cut off. Even after many months in Sierra Leone, with all the amputees there, I still can’t cope with this when it’s a young child, I had to turn and run out as my eyes filled up.  We have had some miracle healings at the clinic. The work is hard, very long days, the weather is hot the sleeping, eating conditions are challenging and it is physically and mentally exhausting, but it is such a privilege to be here helping these resilient people, the children that were pulled out from under rubble with severe injuries, a few weeks ago, they get patched up in the clinic, and are now giving beautiful smiles again. The people of Haiti are so resilient, the medical staff are heroes and heroines, it is an honor to serve these people. There is no other place in the world that I would rather be, than right here, right now.