A group of eight volunteers from CMH Regional Health System had their lives impacted by a week-long mission trip to Haiti organized by Live Beyond. The group provided medical care at clinics treating over 100 patients per day for issues like intestinal parasites and skin infections due to poor water and sanitation. They also visited an orphanage caring for some of Haiti's over 300,000 orphans, with mothers sometimes handing over babies knowing they would receive better care. The volunteers developed close relationships and felt inspired to get more involved in volunteer work, seeing extreme poverty in Haiti that is unimaginable to those in the US.

1. Week Long Mission Trip To Haiti Has Huge Impact on Group from CMH
Published by Clinton Memorial Hospital, 8/1/2013
WILMINGTON, Ohio—A group of eight volunteers representing CMH Regional Health System
knew when they signed up to make a humanitarian health mission trip to the impoverished
country of Haiti that it was an opportunity to impact and improve lives.
They also figured it would impact and change their own lives—they just didn’t know how much
until they concluded their volunteer week in mid-July.
"It was a week of contrast," said Mike Alden, one of the CMH volunteers. "It was absolutely
stunning and beautiful at times but just underneath you see despair and people starving.”
In addition to Alden, an operations manager, representing CMH on the trip were Dr. Ed
Onusko and Dr. Tommy Tigar, pharmacy manager Mike Cleckner, and registered nurses
Andrea Howard, Emily Payne, Debbie Persinger and Kelli Hull.
A Nashville-based humanitarian organization called Live Beyond organizes ongoing trips to
Haiti, a country that was in a bad way even before the devastating earthquake of 2010.
Live Beyond purchased undeveloped land in Thomazeau, an area about two hours from the
capital of Port-au-Prince, and is the long-term process of building a hospital, chapel, primary
and secondary schools and a demonstration farm.
CMH’s parent company, RegionalCare Hospital Partners, also of Nashville, collaborates with
LiveBeyond to send teams from its hospitals to help with the clinics. CMH was only the second
RegionalCare hospital to send volunteers and each hospital will have the opportunity to send
volunteers every year.
"Haiti is a country that, even before the earthquake, was probably one of the poorest
countries in the world," Cleckner said. "The average wage or a wage that you could live on in
Haiti, is a $1.50 a day. If you are making less than $1.50 a day, you are what they call at-risk
poor. Fifty percent of the population in Haiti is at-risk poor.”
Though collectively, the group had well over 100 years of medical experience, they were
confronted on a daily basis with conditions they rarely see while practicing medicine in
southwest Ohio.
"We would set up a clinic in about 45 minutes and there were maybe 100, 125 people already
waiting to see us," Cleckner said.
Most Haitians the team saw had scabies or some other skin fungus and almost all children
under the age of five had to receive treatment for intestinal parasites.
"Why this happens is because the water is terrible," Cleckner said. "Potable water is very
difficult to get in Haiti and the wells are not dug deep enough. And the moms, because they
had nothing else, were mixing dirt with water and feeding it to them [children] as porridge. So
now, the water's not good and the dirt has parasites in it."
Cleckner said that no matter what help they gave to the children, "you knew that in a certain
period of time the child's going to have it right back again."
The group also visited an orphanage that is connected with LiveBeyond. In Haiti, there are
approximately 30,000 orphanage beds but more than 300,000 orphans. While in the

2. orphanage, children are given food, education, and protection because there is virtually no
government support.
Most Haitians understand there is no future in their native land. "When we traveled through
areas that were populated, we usually had our windows up," Cleckner said. "And the
statement was made, don't be surprised if a mother comes up and hands you her baby
because they know that you'll put it in the orphanage. They know that it's much better there
than anywhere else."
LiveBeyond has developed a transition plan for some orphans once they turn 16 and must go
out on their own. "They use them in the clinics as workers and interpreters," Alden said.
The local contingent is still coming to grips with what they experienced. "We're still trying to
wrap our heads around it, what we've seen, and what we've learned from it," Howard said.
Alden said that what he walked away with was a concept of poverty that was unimaginable.
"There is a poor there that is uncomprehendable,” he said. “I am very happy that
RegionalCare is helping people who really, really are poor, because the poor in the US do not
compare to the poor there."
Howard felt that one of the most incredible aspects of the trip was the bond that was created
between the volunteers. "Being down there and being on a whole other level with the people
you've worked with...it's amazing, just the relationships you build that way and how much
closer you become," Howard said. "And there were college students, and there were interns
from everywhere, and they all jumped in, they were just amazing."
Cleckner felt that the trip inspired him, and can inspire others as well, to become more
engaged in the community, and particularly with volunteer and service work. "I don't have to
go back to Haiti to make use of my experience," Cleckner said. "There are wonderful
opportunities right outside your door. You just need to open yourself up and think about what
presents itself to you."