Miracles: Small, Large and Slow at The Good Samaritan Hospital
- Everyone arrived at the airport on time and there were no flight delays.
- We had a cement mixer on the worksite.
- The hospital was packed with patients.
- There were enough pill counters for the drug party.
- Most of the children look healthy.
- A son was saved because Good Samaritan could offer free heart surgery
- The generator worked when the power went down.
- The water in the shower is not ice cold.
In the late 1980’s John Luc Phenard had a dream and a vision. His parishioners, Haitians living and working in the cane fields of the Dominican Republic needed health care. The vision included a teaching hospital to meet the needs of the poor, especially the Haitians who were often denied treatment in the local hospitals and to provide enough medical professionals to meet the needs of all the people in the Dominican Republic.
Central Romana, who owns most to the land in the area and employs the Haitians to cut cane, finally agreed to give Jean Luc some land. The land was on a hill north of town and was literally the town dump. When the teams arrived from the US to start construction, the locals laughed. Progress was slow, but the land was cleared and a hospital began to rise from the coral.
The 4th floor is now under construction. The first three floors contain an emergency room, operating rooms, patient rooms and numerous doctor offices.
In the meantime, medical clinics continue to visit the batays. They can treat minor problems at the clinics and send others to the hospital. They also provide vitamins and dental supplies to the people they see. The people on the batays have very little and the homes are generally one or two rooms. But, many latrines have been added, most homes have a water filter, the children are no longer dying of starvation, and getting sick is not a death sentence.
