LDS relief: Mormon doctors from Utah set up new clinic in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Nothing is routine in Haiti, especially setting up another makeshift meetinghouse clinic.

Each new day and new location means new patients and new challenges.

On Monday, the LDS Church-sponsored team of volunteer doctors and nurses responding to medical needs in earthquake-ravaged Haiti set up shop in the Croix des Missions meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The church building is located in one of already-poor Port-au-Prince's most poverty-stricken areas, just a couple of blocks from what has become a key post-quake point at the Gris River.

Heavy street traffic — including trucks and buses — has created a crude detour from a closed, unstable metal bridge over lumpy, bumpy dirt roads and past women washing their clothes in the shallow waters — and past pigs and goats rummaging through refuse dumps located oh-too-close to the riverbed.

But inside the gated meetinghouse grounds awaits a veritable oasis — clean, near-perfect concrete driveways and parking areas, lush lawns, towering trees and a sparkling church building that medical staff says looks temple-like.

The only immediately visible signs of damage are at the front and back of the meetinghouse. On the front wall, a large stone sign — the Haitian Creole version of the church's name — has a noticeable crack running through it. Behind the building, the back cinder-block-and-cement wall has fallen flat on its side.

The crowd of homeless staying on the grounds is not as large at the Croix des Missions building as others in Port-au-Prince, such as the Centrale Ward and Petion-ville Ward meetinghouses — scores rather than hundreds.

Whenever the staff sets up a clinic, its members must transport a dozen or so pieces of luggage and bags containing medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, and then separate everything out in a makeshift pharmacy.

The team set up Monday's clinic in the back of the Croix des Missions chapel, in a tiled overflow and stage area beyond the last row of wooden pews. A clinic on the move means certain items may be in short supply.