The York Dispatch recently published an article about one recent relief worker’s experiences while in Haiti with PID. Please see below to read the entire article:

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York Hospital Nurse Amazed by the Hope in Haiti
She traveled there to volunteer after the January earthquake.

Susan, listening to the breathing sounds of a Haitian patient.

Susan McDonald could hear them every day and night.

Sometimes she was so gripped by the sounds she’d stop walking. All

she could do was stand and listen.

“From miles away I could hear 1,000 Haiti voices singing hymns in unity,” said McDonald, of New Freedom. “You’re going through this incredible devastation and loss of human life. But at the same time you’re surrounded by people full of hope and faith. That was remarkable.”

McDonald, an emergency room nurse at York Hospital, said she is still moved by her recent experience in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where she helped provide medical treatment to earthquake victims.

She did volunteer work there from March 13 to March 20.

The nurse traveled with volunteers and officials from
Susan McDonald helps treat a patient while she was in Haiti last month. (Photo submitted)
Ipswich, Mass.-based Partners in Development, a nonprofit, nondenominational Christian organization that has been providing medical care as well as educational and economic development programs in Haiti since 1990.

Determined to help: McDonald said she learned about the organization while looking for opportunities to volunteer her medical services to victims of the January earthquake.

“When I heard about the earthquake, I got a passport the next day and I had all my vaccinations done and I put myself on lists for organizations looking for nurses,” she said. “And I worked extra shifts and collected donations from family and friends. I had to pay my own way to Haiti.”

While in Haiti, McDonald said she worked in one of the few Partners in Development medical clinics minimally affected by the quake. She said she helped the group vaccinate more than 6,000 adults and children. She also treated people with anemia, tuberculosis, malaria, eye injuries,
rashes and upper respiratory infections resulting from sleeping on streets.

“We had even more serious things such as a man being brought in while he was in the middle of a stroke,” she said. “I had a 22-day-old (baby) come in with breathing difficulties who we had to resuscitate, and we did successfully.”

Humbling experience: The nurse said she was humbled by the thankful and appreciative attitudes of Haitians receiving treatment.

“There were people who were sad with down-trodden faces, but they were willing to sit outside and wait in blazing heat for eight hours and then they were blessing you and God for Tylenol,” McDonald said. “I was humbled to no end.”

At night, the nurse and her fellow volunteers, settled in their tents set up in the backyard of an earthquake-damaged home.

“The hymns were the last thing in the evening I would hear,” she said. “The people there are so incredibly hopeful. I want to go back to Haiti soon.”