Dr Keenan with one of
the children she treated in Haiti.
Photo: Miramichi Leader
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Routinely trading in the comforts
of home in order to help the sick and poverty-stricken
is something one Miramichi, New Brunswick, physician
says she's more than happy to do.
Dr Tiffany Keenan, an emergency
room physician at the Miramichi Regional Hospital in
eastern NB, says she is hooked on helping the afflicted
and comforting orphaned children in developing and third
world countries.
In late February she led a group
of 13 Miramichi doctors, nurses, paramedics and aid
workers to Haiti for a two week stint. The group, known
as Team Canada Hearts Together for Haiti, provides medical
care for Haiti's poorest residents. The current group
brings together volunteers from a rehabilitation team
headed by Fredericton doc Dr Colleen O'Connell called
Team Canada Healing Hands.
"I'm used to dealing with death
and dying in the emergency department. It's something
that happens frequently. But, when you see children
that are dying because of malnutrition or poverty, it
breaks your heart," Dr Keenan said before the trip.
"You know it should be something that is easy to treat."
UNDER
THE STARS
The Hearts Together for Haiti team brought medical supplies,
water purification equipment and educational material
with them to the small village of Bod me Limbe, a remote
town accessible only by boat. The clinic, in a hut,
had no electrical lighting so the doctors planned to
use miner's lamps for light.
Dr Keenan said she and her husband
planned to stay in a tent. Her husband, an engineer,
would set up the water purification devices and plumbing
facilities.
This trip marked Dr Keenan's fourth
as an overseas aid physician. She made her first trip
to Haiti in February 2006. She followed it up with another
trip to Haiti in April. In June, she travelled to Point
Noire, Congo, for a two-week medical clinic there.
DISASTER
ZONE
On past trips to Haiti, the poorest country in the western
hemisphere, Dr Keenan did a lot of work at Healing Hands
for Haiti's Kay Kapab Clinic in Port-au-Prince. The
Kay Kapab Clinic provides affordable care for Haitians
requiring artificial limbs and those with serious ailments.
Dr Keenan said less than 10% of
the population is employed and more than half of them
make less than a dollar per day. This makes paying for
things Canadians largely take for granted — including
medicine, food and education — next to impossible
for the majority of Haitians. Many of the people live
in squalor, bathing in streams used by wild animals
and living in small, unsanitary shacks.
One in 10 children die before they
reach five years of age, she said.
"You are overwhelmed when you are
in the orphanages because there are so many kids that
you need to help and you know there are babies that
are dying," Dr Keenan said.
"Sometimes, there are kids that
are in a bit better shape that we could help. There
was one little kid that was just lying in a bed, so
we got the kid up and put the kid in a wheelchair. By
the end of the hour that we were there, the kid was
smiling and laughing," Dr Keenan recalled.
"You go from feeling so down and
low for seeing a baby die, and then you go upstairs
and you know that one kid now has a better life because
you've come. You have to focus on one child, one patient,
at a time. If you didn't, you would feel like you weren't
being of good use if you thought you could try to change
everything. It's a patient at a time, a day at a time."
She said there are more than 60
orphanages in the capital city alone, each housing 15-150
children.
"You go into the orphanages and
the kids just swarm you. The kids are just dying for
attention," Dr Keenan recalled.
TEDDIES
BRING SMILES
During her first trip in February 2006, Dr Keenan brought
a hockey bag stuffed with homemade teddy bears.
Joan Somers, a founding member
of the Miramichi chapter of Teddies for Tragedies, was
one of the knitters. She said knowing that each teddy
bear can bring joy to a child serves as inspiration
to continue knitting the colourful wool bears.
"We chose to send the teddies there
because we wanted to send them to a country with underprivileged
children who would love to have something to hug and
call their own," Ms Somers explained. "Those teddies
brought smiles to many children."
Dr Keenan said the home-made teddies
not only brought joy and comfort to the children, they
helped break the ice when children were frightened.
SENSE
OF DUTY
Dr Keenan said she saw hundreds of children in her last
two visits.
"What's driving me? It's the people.
It's knowing that so much poverty exists in the world.
I do feel very fortunate that I am a physician, that
I have been gifted with those skills. I can do my part
in North America, which I feel I need to do because
this is the country that I'm from... but I also feel
that there are so many people who can benefit from my
help," Dr Keenan said.
"Right now, we have a worldwide
shortage of physicians. If I can take my skills and
work in the third world for a few months a year, I think
I need to. I guess I owe it to the world, to the people
and the children. I feel it's my duty in a sense."
She said her husband, her coworkers
and her friends are extremely supportive of her new
lifestyle adjustment.
"One of my mottos is carpe diem,
which is seize the day. I feel I should go if the opportunity
arises, because you may not always have your health
or the ability to go and do these types of projects,"
Dr Keenan said.
Reprinted with permission from
the Miramichi Leader
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