Robyn Couper with some Haitian friends. Photo supplied.
Robyn Couper has arrived in Haiti ahead of a team of
three physiotherapists who arrive on Saturday as part of
Project HHH - Hearts and Hands for Haiti.
In an email this week, Miss Couper, of Oamaru, who worked as
a missionary in Haiti for 33 years, said much has happened in
Haiti in the five months since the first Project HHH medical
team returned to New Zealand, including Tropical Storm Tomas
and a cholera epidemic.
She was pleased to see people being fanatical about washing
their hands.
She had heard about the stress of seeing trucks carrying dead
bodies, parents sending their children to school and worrying
about what they were eating and touching and if they were
washing their hands.
At the peak of the outbreak in Cap Haitien, there were up to
600 in a gymnasium which had been turned into a makeshift
cholera centre, but it had since been closed.
The number of infected cases had dropped dramatically, she
said.
People were feeling safer and more comfortable and simple
measures had brought "outstanding" results.
"The upside of the tragedy is that things that everyone
should have been doing all the time are being put into
practice and are shown to be ever so effective in keeping
disease at bay."
Project HHH was launched in January last year, following the
devastating earthquake in the Caribbean republic.
Physiotherapists Fiona Millard, Chris Higgs and Claire
Hargest will be helping at a rehabilitation centre, a venture
of the University of Miami in conjunction with the Justinian
Hospital in Cap Haitien.
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