This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 11, 2011 - One year after he experienced the horrific shaking of the Jan. 12, Haitian earthquake, Charles Gulas is back in Haiti.
Like many St. Louisans, perhaps 300 professionals who have helped in Haiti in the past year, he advocates that volunteers must teach Haitians to run their own country, must create new jobs and improve the educational and health and food programs. One year after the quake, Gulas and many St. Louisans we interviewed agreed that outsiders have to not hand out fish, but rather must give out fishing poles with fishing instructions. Even better, Thad Simons, president of Novus International in St. Charles, said: "We must teach Haitians to build their own fishing poles."
The poorest nation in the Western hemisphere must not continue as a charity case. Most Haitians don't want to stand in line for help but to learn, work and help themselves, St. Louis volunteers said.
That fateful January afternoon a year ago, Gulas, dean of Maryville University's health professions school, was teaching eight Haitians to become rehabilitation technicians at Hopital Albert Schweitzer, about 30 miles from the epicenter. Neither he, his students nor hospital patients were injured.
At least 230,000 Haitians were killed by the 7.8 earthquake that shook the country for 38 seconds but remains evident everywhere a year later. Tens of thousands survived spinal cord injuries or lost limbs.
Rehabilitation technicians are more in demand than ever. With unemployment running 80 percent, Gulas was not surprised that 60 Haitians applied for the nine-month rehabilitation technician course limited to those with three years of high school. The new class began last week.
The school could have taken more if it had found students qualified. Last year, they took eight; six graduated.
The day of the earthquake, Gulas hurried out of his role as teacher and spent the next three weeks using about all of his medical and administrative skills as hundreds came to the hospital with broken limbs, spinal injuries and eventually infected wounds.
One year later, some things work in Haiti: cell phones, for instance. Gulas' voice was clear during a recent phone interview. Most of the streets in Port-au-Prince are free of rubble, he said, though piles remain on private lots. Debris was dredged from canals to prevent damming and flooding. Many bridges have been rebuilt. "Tap-taps" -- a freelance system of pick-up trucks that serve as taxis -- are back providing most of the public transportation.
But at least 1 million Haitians live in tents, using new public latrines and getting their safe drinking and household water delivered by trucks.
The cholera outbreak seems to be subsiding. Though that water-born disease had been unknown in Haiti, the outbreak was hardly a surprise in a country that lacks sewers, water purification plants and utilities.
Half of Haiti's children are not in school, nor were they before the 2010 earthquake. Most Haitians are not educated. Many can't read about how to add chlorine to their water or why they should not wash dishes, clothing and drink from open streams, which serve many as latrines and sewers.
Gulas has visited the vast tent communities but sees no quick remedy to get those still homeless into wood or masonry-style housing.
"First, land needs to obtained and infrastructure has to be put in -- sewers, water systems, roads and electricity -- then building homes can begin," he said.
"Most tents were put up on private land, people can't build there, but where can they move?" he said. Public high rises are not an answer, Gulas, said. They might only make more of a quagmire the way the well-intentioned, once proud, Pruitt-Igoe housing project did in St Louis in the 1960s.
While appalled at so many living under canvas, Gulas sees a bright side.
The charity-supplied tents are cleaner and roomier than the sheet metal, often windowless, crowded huts that the hurricane destroy, he said. Public health aides teach new mothers about nursing and nutrition, provide first aid and make medical referrals.
Gulas has talked to many Haitians and finds that most say their government has been ineffective or worse. Riots followed the recent election and the U.S. State Department warns visitors about going there.
The Maryville dean, like other St. Louisans interviewed for the Beacon, all stress that everything they do is about eventually making Haiti self-sustaining.
St. Louis Founded Hospital Bursting at Seams
"Haiti would not have 90 percent of its illness if it had sewers, water purification and utilities," said Dr. Bill Guyol, a St. Louis doctor who coordinated all volunteer medical personnel that went to Hospital Sacre Coeur, in northern Haiti, since the earthquake.
All the administrators, staff doctors and nurses at the hospital are Haitians. The hospital, founded by St. Louisans and largely funded by them until about 10 years ago, is the largest employer in the region.
Last year it was a widely respected 70-bed hospital whose funder -- the Center for the Rural Development of Milot, better known as CRUDEM -- was planning gradual expansion. This year it has 320 beds and its board plans several expansions and is considering opening a nursing school.
"The past year has been a transforming experience for the hospital as well as the whole nation," said Dr. Tim O'Connell, a St. Louis reconstructive plastic surgeon who has been volunteering at Sacre Coeur at least a week a year for more than a decade. "Sacre Coeur took countless patients, subsequently was able to make first-class prosthetics for patients who had had their arms and legs amputated. Necessity is the mother of invention, and we were able to respond."
One year ago today, the hospital had six U.S. specialist doctors and nurses volunteering side by side with the hospitals' Haitian staff for a week. This week, they have 50 volunteer medical specialists, said Guyol. "Generally our number of volunteers we get has tripled and quadrupled.," he said.
Sacre Coeur has forged new alliances with several universities including Saint Louis University, Northeastern in Boston and Georgetown in Washington, he said. Northeastern staff are determined to help Haiti for the long term and start a nursing school at Sacre Coeur.
Through the year, first with earthquake and then with cholera outbreak, Sacre Coeur continued to serve its local base, helping 37,000 northern patients for illness and needs unrelated to the earthquake.
Beginning the first week of November, cholera swept much of rural Haiti for the first time in history. Sacre Coeur admitted 1,080 cholera patients over two months. Of those, 26 died. Most were very elderly or children who were extremely ill when they arrived.
"Cholera will be in Haiti now for many, many years," Guyol said. Public health education about washing hands with bleach, not using stream water for food or drink or cleaning seem to be helping, he said. Fortunately, as at Albert Schweitzer, the cholera outbreak seems to be waning.
Sacre Coeur is now known worldwide. A new documentary called "Angels of Milot" will be premiered at a private showing for local supporters this week and on PBS soon, Guyol said.
Patricia Rice is a freelance journalist.