By Scott Taylor

Deseret News

Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Nothing is routine in Haiti, especially setting up another another makeshift meetinghouse clinic.

Each new day and new location means new patients and new challenges.

On Monday, Jan. 25, the LDS Church-sponsored team of volunteer doctors and nurses responding to medical needs in earthquake-ravaged Haiti set up shop in the Croix des Missions meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The church building is located in one of already-poor Port-au-Prince's most poverty-stricken areas, just a couple of blocks from what has become a key post-quake point at the Gris River.

Heavy street traffic -- including trucks and buses -- has created a crude detour from a closed, unstable metal bridge over lumpy, bumpy dirt roads and past women washing their clothes in the shallow waters. And past pigs and goats rummaging through refuse dumps located oh-too-close to the riverbed.

But inside the gated meetinghouse grounds awaits a veritable oasis -- clean, near-perfect concrete driveways and parking areas, lush lawns, towering trees and a sparkling church building that medical staff says looks temple-like.

The only immediately visible signs of damage are at the front and back of the meetinghouse. On the front wall, a large stone sign -- the Haitian Creole version of the church's name -- has a noticeable crack running through it. Behind the building, the back cinder-block-and-cement wall has fallen flat on its side.

The crowd of homeless staying on the grounds is not as large at the Croix des Missions building as others in Port-au-Prince, such as the Centrale Ward and Petion-ville Ward meetinghouses -- scores rather than hundreds.

From a previous quick visit by members of the medical team, local church leaders learned of Monday's planned visit, and they had prepared for the arrival by lining up folding chairs near the entrance, out of the intense Caribbean sun when possible.

Whenever the staff sets up a clinic, they must transport a dozen or so pieces of luggage and bags containing medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, and then separate everything out in a makeshift pharmacy.

The team set up Monday's clinic in the back of the Croix des Missions chapel, in a tiled overflow and stage area beyond the last row of wooden pews. A clinic-on-the-move means certain items may be in short supply.

Monday's missing supplies included a lack of water and snacks -- not so much for the American doctors and nurses, but rather for them to provide to the Haitians who help at the clinics. Medical students help give basic medical care, English-speaking church members help translate communication between U.S. staff and local patients. And other church members are asked to be logistics volunteers, helping with the flow of patients in and out of the clinic area. Water is also given to individuals who receive pills for medication.

Too few latex gloves have been packed, an assumed bottle of hydrogen peroxide is really one volunteer's personal supply of liquid laundry bleach, and it's been some time since anyone has seen a blood-pressure cuff.

With about half of the original 18-member medical team having returned home to pick up their usual practices and shifts, the clinic is not only smaller in size but has fewer individuals who speak either Creole or French in interacting with Haitian patients and workers.

Ogden, Utah, doctor Jeremy Booth, who learned Creole as an LDS missionary in Florida, and Provo, Utah, doctor Creig MacArthur, whose French was learned nearly a half-century ago while serving a mission in France, seemed like the only people who might communicate with patients.

Provo critical-care nurse David Sindel and Corvallis, Ore., doctor Mark Rampton joined Booth and MacArthur in seeing patients, whose injuries and ailments ranged from broken femurs to the common cold. Alpine doctor Dan Egan oversaw the pharmacy and distributing the medicines, with the sorting assistance of Jeff and Ben Richards, teenage sons of Brian Richards, a Layton doctor who was elsewhere in Port-au-Prince assisting another colleague.

At the start, the clinic seemed to be rocked with challenges -- the missing supplies, only one available Haitian translator, no Haitian medical students to assist, and a line of people waiting for consultation.

Somebody braved more than two hours of traffic-clogged streets to retrieve the needed supplies, and the Haitian volunteers soon started to show up and assist.

From the first patient, a mother of a days-old newborn who just wanted a trained doctor to confirm everything was well with the baby, to the last patient, a man complaining of being short of breath, the day was a success, with certain understandable conditions.

The number of patients is starting to dwindle, while the most acute cases brought to the clinics are being transferred to local hospitals because surgical procedures in the makeshift clinic could lead to more serious problems with infection.

Monday's patient tally was close to 100. by comparison, at the early Centrale Ward meetinghouse clinics last week, each volunteer was treating 75 to 100 patients apiece.

Later in the afternoon, volunteers started to pack up the supplies and wonder if they should consider coming back to the Croix des Missions meetinghouse again on Tuesday or move on to another Port-au-Prince location, either at another LDS building or an existing hospital or clinic.

Just then, word came in about a neighborhood clinic about five minutes away, with an overflow of injured and ailing Haitians needing exactly the kind of care the LDS volunteers can provide. One of the doctors rushed over to assess the needs and the possibilities of setting up there Tuesday, Jan. 26.

More patients for another day. Another reason to repeat the daily routine.