Utahn is anxious to return to Haiti

Sitting at her desk in the administrative office of the new Healing Hands for Haiti clinic in Port-au-Prince, Susan Gleason was able to immerse herself in plans for finishing the building, for adding a new rehab hospital, for bringing an education program to the schools to teach children not to shun those with disabilities.

Most days, the work was so compelling she didn't pay much attention to the sound of helicopters overhead or the "bang, bang, bang" of rebel gunfire. The screeching sirens were a little harder to tune out, though.

Pleas from family members in Utah and growls of "get out now" from the American Embassy in Haiti were even harder to ignore. That's why, last week, Gleason reluctantly returned to Utah from the island country where she had lived, most recently, since last August.

Even as she talks to reporters about the civil unrest, the looting and mayhem everywhere in Haiti recently, Gleason says she plans to go back, perhaps as soon as next week — if, that is, the airport stays open and friends there can somehow get her back to the clinic through the maze of roadblocks and areas of gunfire.

For years Gleason has gone to Haiti with Healing Hands for Haiti, which delivers rehabilitation services to the injured — not a concept generally embraced in a country where people with disabilities are set apart. The nonprofit organization was founded by Dr. Jeff Randle, a rehabilitation physician at LDS Hospital who served an LDS mission there.

Gleason got involved when she worked with Randle at LDS Hospital. Last summer she quit her job and moved to Haiti as the organization's director of programs.

So far, the clinic, now tucked away on 4.5 recently donated acres on a quiet downtown street, has been left alone. "We'd always made it clear we were a nondenominational organization," said Gleason. "Now we've made it very clear we're going to be nonpolitical as well."

During the day the radios and televisions are turned off so that news won't interfere with rehabilitation. Workers are told to come to work if they can, though there's no question that the battles outside have made travel to and from work challenging. Some stay home a day here and there, when it's not safe to venture from one area or another.

In Haiti, among a people she loves, Gleason says she sees a "sense of weariness." She has become "desensitized. We've seen this kind of stuff, the gunfire and the roadblocking, starting back in November. By the time it got really bad, we were kind of used to it. We continue to try to live life as best we can. There's always been an element of danger."