On Wednesday, August 28th. I had the honor of travelling to Ronald McDonald House in Akron with Gift of Life – Northeast Ohio president Ken Fogle and his wife Janet.
Six year old Nash from Haiti had just received open heart surgery. Prior to last Friday when the surgery took place Nash was unable to walk but a few steps before he had to sit and catch his breath. His damaged heart was getting weaker by the day and his mother and brothers were forced to watch him face a short and painful life with no medical relief available in Haiti.
Thanks to Gift of Life International and GoL-NEO Nash was able to travel with his mother, at no cost to his family, to Akron Children’s Hospital for his life saving surgery. Five days after the procedure when we visited Nash he was riding a big wheel bike (which he had never seen before) and playing like a normal six year old boy on the Ronald McDonald house playground.
Since Haiti is a Creole French speaking country, through an interpreter, we were able to hear the overwhelming gratitude of his mother for the gift of her son’s life and Nash’s first English words; “Thank you very much”.
This experience brought back my fond memories of my trip to Haiti in 2019 with Ken when we visited the GoL surgical team in the new pediatric intensive care unit at St. Damien’s Hospital in Port-au-Prince where the first Haiti pediatric surgeries were being done. Since that time hundreds of life saving surgeries have been performed at St. Damien’s.
Unfortunately with the current instability of the Haitian government surgeries at St. Damien’s have been restricted which is why Nash had to come to Akron Children’s for his procedure. In 2017, Rotary and the Burton-Middlefield Club with the help of 19 partners established a $110,000 grant for the purchase of equipment to set up the GoL pediatric intensive care unit at St. Damien’s. My trip to Haiti continues to be one of the most impactful moments of my life as I viewed young preschool children who months prior to our visit had basically no future being treated and released as normal kids. Their parents who spoke no English showed how they felt through smiles, hugs and tears of joy, a universal language. Haiti was just one of the places in the world where GoL has set up clinics and sent teams of specialist doctors to do surgeries. They are currently very active in Egypt with a larger surgical unit.
Future plans are underway to establish an intensive care facility in Ghana. This effort will coordinate with the work The Rotary Club of Burton-Middlefield has been doing at the Bill Barnes Pharmacy at a hospital in rural Ghana. Our club has supported this facility since the 1970’s and allowed it to grow and serve its rural community.
We look forward to working with Gift of Life and Gift of Life-Northeast Ohio on this project. Rotary continues to be a worldwide leader in humanitarian work around the globe and collaborates often with like-minded groups like Gift of Life. Rotary is also in the final phases of their efforts to eradicate Polio in the world in conjunction with UNICEF and the World Health Organization. How great it feels to be even a small part of these efforts.
Yours in Service,
Robert Johnson – Secretary – RC of Burton-Middlefield
PDG Bob Johnson, Nash, Dr. Jeff Kempf, Akron Children's Hospital
Nash gets a Rotary pin from PDG Bob Johnson shown with his mother and Dr. Kempf
Cheering on Nash are Janet Fogle - wife of Ken Fogle from Gol-NEO and
Ellen Kempf (back to camera) - wife of Dr. Jeff Kempf
