22 Aug The Miracles Just Keep Coming!
22 Aug The Miracles Just Keep Coming!
Posted at 15:22h in Uncategorized by TGSF
The Good Shepherd Foundation Update
8-20-22
The Miracles for The Good Shepherd Foundation (TGSF) just keep continuing! We are now serving over 150 patients/week at a 5-day weekly clinic with 2 nurses, and an MD on site once/week who is on-call the rest of the time. Read further to see how we got here.
MIRACLE #1: We started in October 2011, in the backyard of Mrs. St. Louis, an 85 yr. old woman, with $1,000 donated by one donor, and have not yet missed a monthly clinic for lack of funds.
MIRACLE #2: As a home care RN, Michele, our founder, visited a patient named Bruce – a 20-year veteran of building wells and latrines in the Caribbean. Bruce joined our Board and has worked tirelessly as our Treasurer and water expert, whose expertise designed and helped build clean water community wells and latrines.
MIRACLE #3: In April 2019, we moved to an indoor clinic on the first floor of a building built as a community center by ORACHEL, a diaspora group from Chevreau now living in the Northeast US. After completing this building, they invited TGSF to use the first floor as our first indoor clinic.
MIRACLES #4 and #5: We furnished this clinic with electricity and water soon after construction and built a second well and latrine.
PLEASE NOTE: ELECTRICITY & RUNNING WATER IN HAITI ARE ABOUT THE SCARCEST 2 ITEMS AVAILABLE ON ANY GIVEN DAY!
MIRACLE # 6: Our partner in Haitian ministry & colleague, Jim Smith, a Colorado surgeon, called in November 2021 with a request. He knew a Haitian RN who he has been in contact with for many years who speaks excellent English. He wondered if we could help Oscar with some employment. We hired Oscar to work in our monthly clinic to help organize patient records and send us reports – giving us the needed documentation for many purposes.
MIRACLE #7: a new model of ministry, as of March 16, 2022. Two RNs live at the clinic, 5 days/week, with 4 hours of clinic/day and on-call the rest of the time. An MD is onsite once/week and on call daily. They saw over 500 patients in the first month, the patient census is growing to over 150/week, and the clinical staff members are fully integrated into this community.
MIRACLE #8: Through several generous and anonymous donations in 2022, we have been able to fund this new clinic’s startup expenses.
MIRACLE #9: We had gotten news that our clinic needed a physician on site each day the clinic is open. We did not have the funds to make this happen, so we did some extensive investigation. The result was that Oscar and our Founder, Michele, contacted the Haitian Ministry of Health, and were informed that we only need a physician onsite one day/week, and we are currently in complete compliance. We have since been approved and recognized as a community clinic and currently ARE FULLY IN COMPLIANCE! This fear came up & was resolved suddenly just this month!
MIRACLE #10: On June 4, 2022, we were informed that TGSF will be the recipient of a Rotary International Grant for $80,000 to build a water filtration system, and TGSF will have oversight of this system, an issue Rotary originally informed us would not be acceptable to them. They have recognized our presence in this community as an asset to their work.
All these successes are beyond our wildest hopes and have led to a need for increased funding, as we serve more and more people in this highly underserved rural community. Please help us continue this work with a generous donation.
Linda McGurn, VP, The Good Shepherd Foundation