FIELD DIARY BY DR. SHARON KRONFELD SHAUL currently on site in Haiti
Friday, September 24, 2021
Field clinic, Haiti
following the magnitude 7.2 earthquake which struck last month …
NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief is a small organization with a big heart. We gather from all over the country for our work sessions, and attendance is almost always full.
A special organization based on the ethic of volunteering.
We are all active professionals, working at our ‘day jobs’ in our own fields and happy to have a piece of our lives dedicated to NATAN.
NATAN’s multidisciplinary approach combines the field of medicine with the field of psychosocial aid. This combination brings together professionals from different fields.
Each of us contributes our professional part in our own field of expertise and at the same time, working together in such small teams requires us to learn new skills so that we can contribute in different fields as well.
I will give some examples:
Eitan, a Doctor of Social Work, a lecturer at the university and Deputy Director of the Department of Social Services in Sapir College in Ofakim, serves as a laboratory worker to perform urine tests at our outdoor field clinic.
Yael, a family doctor who runs a clinic in south Tel Aviv, organizes activities for the village’s children.
Oded, a businessman who is in charge of logistics, measures blood pressure at the reception desk of the outdoor clinic.
And I put my stethoscope aside to serve as French translator during a lecture on trauma intervention …
This special combination allows for a unique shared work experience.
In the final days of our stay in Haiti, we focused on the village of Plane Martin – a village of about 250 families.
Many of the families lost their homes.
Most of the inhabitants are engaged in agriculture or small-scale trade.
The earthquake that occurred 5 weeks ago shook their lives. The plots of land were covered with rocks and their agricultural work was destroyed. The village suffered fatalities as well as numerous injuries.
We opened a local clinic in the village where we treated the sick and injured. Many reported difficulty falling asleep, poor appetite and a feeling of dizziness as if the ground was still shaking.
In a conversation with the local community leader, Pastor Flor, we heard about a community that is facing major upheaval and is having a hard time getting back to routine.
With the help of the pastor, work groups were organized in various fields: education, women, construction and employment.
In meetings with the action groups, we learned from the people about how the disaster met them and how they coped with the situation. We used picture cards to encourage survivors to open up and share their experiences.
Many described how they had huddled together during the quake and spread their hands to the sky calling on God to help them.
Some have seen their homes turn into a mound of stones, while their loved ones lie buried under rubble.
The crops of the mountain farmers have been lost and they are unable to buy seeds for new cultivation.
In simple words Eitan presented the model for coping with trauma (and I translated into French in even simpler words) and gave practical tools for its application in the field.
After two days of activity, we said goodbye to the community. We believe that we have sown a seed of hope in the hearts of the people and that the change in the situation, even if it is small steps, will come from them.
We hope to be able to join forces with other aid organizations and raise donations for another delegation that can continue to accompany the village in the rehabilitation process.