MAF HAITI OUTLOOK 2012 Catalyst for Change
T
hree months a!er 12-year-old Dieuphete Celime mistook gasoline for kerosene while cooking corn for his siblings, he was still fragile –and not healing well. The medical staff at Hôpital Bienfaisance in Pignon, Haiti, had done all it could do. Dieuphete needed specialized medical help, the kind he couldn’t find in his country. Dieuphete needed to get to the Portau-Prince airport from Pignon, a small town located in the mountainous interior of Haiti. The Shriners Hospitals for Children in Boston had agreed to provide the specialized treatment needed – and Dieuphete had a 10:30 a.m. flight on American Airlines headed for the United States. Driving to Port-au-Prince would take seven hours over rough and treacherous roads, a dangerous situation considering the boy’s delicate state. The request came in just before Christmas. It didn’t take much convincing for the MAF staff to give up one of their holidays – a simple request did the trick. Jim Scheller from Haiti Outreach, who arranged Dieuphete’s care, said he trusted only MAF to handle the suffering child. It’s the kind of trust MAF has built with other organizations after more than 25 years of serving in Haiti. Early on the morning of December 26, MAF pilot David Harms was on his way to Pignon to pick up Dieuphete and take him to Portau-Prince. A short time later, Dieuphete was in Boston, getting the care he needed to restore his face from the devastating burns and heal properly.