RHCI therapist’s healing mission

RALLYING AMIDST THE RUBBLE – Nora Kenneway snapped this photo of Haitians in Port-au-Prince doing their best to return to normal life amidst the ruin and rubble of their post-earthquake city.


Barnstable Patriot (Hyannis, Mass)
"Bringing hope to Haiti"

Written by Kathleen Szmit  
April 30, 2010

When Nora Kenneway returned to Marstons Mills after spending two weeks on the earthquake-ravaged island of Haiti, the first thing she did was take a shower.

In Port-Au-Prince, where Kenneway, an occupational therapist with the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands, traveled to offer much-needed medical therapy services to earthquake victims, the only shower came from a cold trickle of rainwater stored in a rooftop basin, barely enough to wash one’s hands, let alone the dirt and dust so prevalent amidst the rubble of ruined buildings.

Though Kenneway was finally able to get fully clean once back at home, the memories of her time in Haiti – some difficult, some rewarding – linger in her mind.

“It’s nice to be back,” she said. “I have a much better appreciation for the resources I have available here. It’s nice to be able to wash my hands.”

That said, Kenneway was thrilled to travel to Haiti as part of a coordinated effort with colleagues from the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, which includes RHCI.

“It was the opportunity of a lifetime,” she said. “It’s also appealing to think of doing something tangible.”

Kenneway was one of three RHCI therapists who went to Haiti as part of RHCI and Spaulding’s involvement with Partners in Health, a Boston-based non-profit health care organization that provides health care in extremely poor areas of the world. Partners in Health had been operating in Haiti for more than two decades prior to the January earthquake.

While in Haiti, Kenneway and the team she was working with were stationed at Hospital de l’Universite d’etat d’Haiti (HUEH) in Port-au-Prince. What she noticed immediately were the harsh conditions of the area even months after the quake.

According to Kenneway, many people – patients and non-patients – were housed in tents. There was no running water except for that which came out of a spigot on a main street, and portable toilets took the place of indoor plumbing.

Perhaps more stunning to Kenneway was the fact that the illnesses medical teams were helping to treat were those no longer prevalent in the US, diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and Tetanus.

“The doctors were definitely saying they didn’t have the variety of medicines they’d like,” Kenneway said.

Therapy supplies were also scarce. Between the more than 30 assistants on Kenneway’s team there was only one walker and one wheelchair. Other instruments – ankle braces and such – had to be fashioned from various materials and held together with duct tape.

Kenneway, who worked with patients from newborns to adults, said that at first people were confused at the notion of occupational and physical therapy.

“At the hospital we were at, they’ve never had any sort of therapy services,” she said. “Culturally it’s not something that’s widely accepted.”

Nonetheless, Kenneway said that ultimately people were appreciative of the care they received even in the makeshift hospital, which Kenneway said was actually a step up from what had been there.

“This hospital is actually functioning better now than before the earthquake because of all the foreign assistance,” she said. “I think that’s one of the things that was shocking to us, to see the conditions and know that this was still better.”

Though the conditions were appalling, Kenneway was inspired by the determination of the Haitian people. One of the team’s interpreters lost everything to the earthquake, his home and his family, but continued to work. Another interpreter, a medical student, had arranged to finish his schooling in the US, his school having been destroyed in the quake.

“These are incredibly tough people,” Kenneway said. “When you see the conditions they’re living in, the fact that any of them are surviving is remarkable.”

The patient that really grabbed Kenneway’s heart was an orphaned/abandoned baby named Moise. Weighing only about seven pounds, Kenneway marveled at the resiliency of the little one, whom she called “absolutely adorable.”

To help patients like Moise, Kenneway encourages people to consider making a donation to Partners in Health (www.pih.org).

“There’s still a need for donations and awareness of what’s going on,” she said. “It’s been three months, but there’s still such a need.”

There is a small possibility that Kenneway will return to Haiti in the fall, something she would be glad to do. “I would go back,” she said. “It was definitely rewarding.”