Notes from Haiti

We find fourteen year-old Onor near a park in Petion-ville, his usual stomping grounds. Street kids have a beat and stick to it. It is where they work and are most comfortable. He is gambling what little money he has for food with other street kids.

Another street kid pulls Onor's fake velour shirt sleeve up. The bone on his right arm is sticking out. He has a badly infected compound fracture. He tells us he doesn't know how it happened. In reality, he knows what happened but is unwilling to tell us. More than likely, he was beaten up by someone much older than he for nothing other than the fact that he is a street kid.

Onor's bone has been sticking out of his arm for more than two weeks. He has not seen medical attention. The infection is beginning to take over more and more of his arm. He is becoming sicker and has developed a cough.

Onor will die in a week if the infection is not taken care of and his broken arm set back into place and mended.

We find Onor the next day sleeping in a ravine because he has gotten sicker. Piles of trash fifteen feet tall rot in the ravine. Pigs bigger than Onor take refuge from the scorching sun in the trash and disease infested water that flows slowly down hill. Ono feels safe sleeping here.

We seek help for Onor but are turned back at every hospital and clinic we go to. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) will not take him, nor will any other place we try.

He is a street kid: The lowest of the low in Haiti. We cannot take him to l'Hopital Generale in downtown Port-au-Prince because they will either cut his arm off or superficially 'heal' his wound: Their preferred method of treatment is wrapping a layer of gauze soaked with strong antibiotics over the wound, neglecting to set the bone and then putting a cast on over the compound fracture. The 'treatment' will eventually kill him but it is the cheapest and easiest way.

It is out of the question financially to take Onor to a clinic that will treat him. It will cost roughly $50 USD to save his life.

Three options remain for Onor: Money can be provided for Onor's treatment at a medical clinic. His arm can either be amputated or 'healed' - in which case he will better of dead as a cripple street kid or will die a slow and agonizing death. Or, Onors infection will kill the bone marrow, his arm will die and he will go into septic shock and die a slow and agonizing death.

Onor's case isn't rare. In fact, it happens often here.

To help Onor, send an email to this address: HaitianStreetKids@rescueteam.com

To learn more: http://haitianstreetkids.com/