From Deseret News archives:

Mending bodies, building a legacy

Utahns leave their hearts — and a new clinic — in Haiti

Published: Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2000 2:32 p.m. MDT
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As the children arrived at the clinic, each received a toy. For hours, as they waited for treatment and later as they waited for the others to be treated so they could all board the bus home, they played with them. At the end of the day, though, each child put his or her toy back.

"There will be other children here. They will need toys, too," the children would tell the Utahns.

Frederick looms large in the reporter's memory. The team discusses at some length what a malnourished child should consume. The girl, younger than a year, is thread-thin and too weak to sit up on her own.

After the medical exam, she is sent to Frederick for strengthening exercises. Frederick cradles the child against her, cupping her chin in her hand as she shows the girl's parents a simple way to get her to swallow by massaging her throat.

So simple. So key to life.


Dennis Kurumada, a cameraman who has for decades covered Utah news and who is Becky Kurumada's husband, admits he's a little cynical. He's photographed some of the worst atrocities the human mind can conceive.

But the night the clinic has its grand opening, he's feeling strangely emotional. He's visited the orphanages, videotaped filth, poverty and sorrow. He knows how important rehabilitation is. "We are witnessing a miracle," he said quietly.

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The speeches are long, the night too hot. The crowd divides into two groups who don't mingle. Francois Mezilien and a dozen or so others stay outside on the balcony, uncomfortable in their worn but tidy clothing.

Inside, local dignitaries mingle. The difference is clear in the languages being spoken. Indoors, people such as popular TV and radio talk-show host Elizabeth Parisot speak French, the language of the elite. There are local physicians, public officials, church leaders, missionaries. Out on the balcony, they're speaking common-man Creole, spelled here Kreyol.

Still, though they'll never mix socially, the group Lowe calls "the uppity uppities" are fiercely dedicated to the concept of rehabilitation. They give money, time, suggestions.

Dr. Idgie Garnier, an orthopedic surgeon who works long hours at St. Vincent's in an operating room that wouldn't be an adequate supply closet in America, calls the new clinic "exciting. We don't have rehabilitation hospitals in Haiti. This is the first long-term follow-up specializing in that care. In Haiti, the handicapped are pushed away. They need a better quality of life."

Parisot believes rehabilitation will be important if Haitians are ever to see those with disabilities as capable and important.


At the end of the week, in shifts, the group begins to fly home. As they wait in the stifling airport, it is likely most thoughts turn to the final clinic, the one that marked a new phase for Healing Hands for Haiti.

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Lois M. Collins, Deseret News

Evelyn Frederick demonstrates a technique for getting a child to swallow.

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