Davenport nurses head to Haiti

Two registered nurses from Davenport’s Genesis Medical Center leave for the island nation of Haiti soon where they’ll go on hundreds of house calls. R-Ns Mike Curry and Deb Stockdale will spend two weeks in the mountaintop village of Bon A Dos with a team of seven other health care professionals from the U.S. Stockdale says they’ll visit between three-and-four-hundred Haitian homes, most of which are mud huts with thatched roofs. She says they’ll also help build a church.They’ll give everyone who turns up worming pills, fluoride treatments and do preventive health care, health teaching and treat whatever minor things are found. Stockdale has gone to Haiti before on this sort of mission and says as many as 700 villagers walked two or three days to get medical care. This time, she’ll also be providing them with a care package. They’ll leave each family a health kit containing a year’s worth of vitamins for each member, basic over-the-counter medications, first aid supplies, a bag of rice, a bag of beans and a Bible in Creole. While Stockdale says it’s encouraging to go and try to help, it’s also a difficult task seeing the friendly Haitians in such deplorable conditions. She says food is the first priority and some people in Bon A Dos don’t eat every day, so medication and medical treatment are low priorities until something becomes critical and even then, it depends on whether they have money to pay for the help. The two-week mission begins November 1st and is being coordinated by Harvest International.