Doctor to accompany LDS relief to Haiti

Dr. Jeff Randle will be on board when a plane loaded with supplies for a humanitarian mission of the LDS Church takes off for Haiti, most likely on Sunday. His determination to help has been matched by a huge outpouring of relief from Utahns.

The rehabilitation specialist founded Healing Hands for Haiti more than 12 years ago after seeing the poverty and lack of rehab services for Haitians with disabilities when he was on an LDS mission. He'd made up his mind to bring rehab to the island country and over the course of years, relying heavily on volunteers and donations, mostly from Utahns, he did just that.

Thursday, he learned that only the guesthouse in the compound owned by the charity he founded still stands. It's possible, he told the Deseret News Friday, that at least some of those traveling with the LDS Church will stay there.

It's also possible, though, that he won't make it to the compound himself, he admitted. The roads are still largely impassable and he's not sure what to expect. And much as he'd like to see the clinic he established, his purpose in going, along with the other doctors, is to help those who are suffering in the earthquake's aftermath.

A representative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who is serving in Santa Domingo plans to leave very early Saturday and make his way to the Port-au-Prince area to "get things going for us," Randle said.

Another of Randle's physician colleagues, affiliated with Healing Hands for Haiti in Canada, will travel there at the same time with Handicapped International to help triage the injured and see who perhaps needs to be transported off the island for treatment.

"I hope to help do some of that, as well," Randle said. He added that he expects to provide suturing, first aid and other immediate-care services to the injured.

Trauma surgeon Dr. Ray Price of Intermountain Medical Center will be on board, as well, along with other physicians with different specialties, including an emergency room doctor.

Meanwhile, Susan Gleason Pierre-Louis met with Haitian students who are trying to organize relief and find ways to locate relatives across the divide between Utah and Haiti. This weekend, Pierre-Louis, a Salt Lake woman who for years served as a program director for Healing Hands and who married a Haitian, has also been asked to meet with returned LDS missionaries who over the years served in Haiti so they can come up with some type of long-term plan to help the devastated and impoverished country.