A group of Penobscot Bay Medical Center doctors recently participated in a humanitarian mission to Haiti, performing surgery and providing medical service for dozens of people.

Drs. Kevin Olehnik, orthopedist; Lars Ellison, urologist; Douglas Cole, general surgeon; David Maddox, anesthesiologist and Kendall Robinson, recovery room nurse, spent a week in Leogane, Haiti as part of the Notre Dame Haiti Program, a part of the biology department at the University of Notre Dame.

The local group was organized by Olehnik, a Notre Dame alumnus. He said the PBMC group will try to return within the next year to help address medical problems they weren't equipped to deal with on this trip.

"I don't think anyone can imagine the poverty of a place like Haiti until they have seen it for themselves," said Olehnik. "These people have nothing."

"This kind of work is very fulfilling. We are able to do something for people who otherwise wouldn't be able to get medical care like this," he said.


This photo was taken on the roof of the group's residence:
From left, Dr. Lars Ellison, Dr. Dave Maddox, Dr. Kevin Olehnik,
Dr. Doug Cole and Nurse Kendall Robinson.

For their mission in January, the PBMC group focused on lymphatic filariasis (LF), a mosquito-borne illness that was eradicated in wealthy countries by the revolution in hygiene and sanitation in the 19th and early 20th centuries but that persists in poor countries like Haiti, where sewage flows in the streets and water treatment is rare.

Leogane, the site of the mission, is 18 miles from Port Au Prince – but the roads are so rough the trip takes three hours. Half the people in Leogane test positive for LF. A small percentage of those become disfigured: in men, the parasitic worm carried by mosquitoes causes a swelling and scarring of the scrotum, sometimes creating football-sized growths between the legs.

Men with this affliction walk bow-legged and some wear skirts to hide the growths. They are often the subject of ridicule.

The Notre Dame Haiti Program started 10 years ago. It received $5.2 million in 1999 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In addition to medical treatment, the program has a major underlying effort: the distribution of salt impregnated with a medication that destroys the LF parasite. The Notre Dame Program's goal is the eradication of LF.

News of the Notre Dame program has spread so that many afflicted Haitians come to Leogane for help. While the Maine contingent was there to offer assistance, they were able to learn, too. The expertise of a Haitian urologist, Dr. Mitelot Clervil, was instrumental as the Americans operated on men whose condition they have never seen before.

"(Clervil) is an excellent surgeon. I learned a lot from him," Ellison told a Notre Dame alumni magazine.

Every day during their week-long stay in Haiti the Maine group encountered people with medical issues the group was not equipped to address. One man heard about the medical mission and brought his 14-year-old son, a promising soccer player, to the doctors. Olehnik said the boy had broken his ankle a year before and it had healed improperly.

The man asked Olehnik when he could help his son. Olehnik promised he and the other Maine doctors would be back within 12 months.

Olehnik said he is establishing a non-profit group in the Midcoast to raise money for future medical missions to Haiti. He expects it will be able to receive donations by summer.

For more information, contact Dr. Kevin Olehnik, Penobscot Bay Physicians Building, 4 Glen Cove Drive, Suite 206, Rockport, 04856.

Front row, from left: Robenson (Haitian interpretor); Sister Mary Spano, Nurse Kendall Robinson, Dr. Doug Cole. Back row: Dr. Dave Maddox; Louis Precene (Haitian interpretor); Wayne Falda (Notre Dame Magazine); Wilfred (driver); Dr. Lars Ellison, and Frantz Remy (security).