Both Oars In The press in the time of Cholera

Oct 27, 2010

I do not want to write this column.  I have many reasons: I do not have Cholera.  Nobody I know has cholera. Too many people have already died of cholera in Haiti. Cholera gets too much press. My mom reads my column. Cholera scares people. Cholera is a demon.  Most importantly, I adamantly believe that the only thing that needs to be written about Cholera is how to stop it, and the local press has that covered. A quick poll of our students and staff at our Catholic secondary boarding school in Haiti reveals that most everyone has heard the message: wash your hands, and drink clean water. Sounds simple, but this is the battle cry against cholera. 

So, what more is there to write?

Still, I feel compelled to write because it seems to be the only way to shift the focus from the demon to those who are fighting the demon. The reporters seem unable to see the fighters. Instead, they insist on writing about the disease. Offered an opportunity to write a bit about a Haitian doctor right in the middle of the fight, a New York Times reporter curtly replied by e-mail that she would not write about that when “an epidemic is raging.” Hopefully the current, tenuous containment has not disappointed her.

To her response, I quote a friend, “People need heroes in tough times.” But the New York Times is not writing for Haitians.  If they were, they would not present Doctors Without Borders, the world renowned international organization, as “engaged,” while describing the Minister of Health, a local doctor, as sitting in an “immaculate, air-conditioned office with his hands clasped.”  Remember, we offered them a story on a Haitian doctor in the middle of the fight.

I first met the doctor in the middle of this fight when he was in his final years of secondary school. Jhonny then, and Dr. Jhonny Fequiere now, has always exuded confidence. He is a natural leader. Thanks to his own intellect and his educational opportunities, first at Louverture Cleary School and then at the state medical school, he became a doctor in 2006. He is now both a leader and a healer.

After graduating, he completed his year of mandatory social service at a state hospital in the Artibonite—where the current cholera outbreak first occurred.  He has remained in the Artibonite ever since.  In 2007, while still very young, he became the medical director for L’hopital Claire Heureuse, a missionary hospital which serves the people of the Artibonite region, which number more than 250,000. 

Thanks to God’s providence and Jhonny’s commitment to his country and its people, he was in the right spot at the right time to fight the cholera outbreak from day one.  First, he reported that he and his hospital were a bit overwhelmed.  On Saturday, they had so many patients that they had spilled into the yard. On Tuesday, however, he reported the tide was turning—fewer overall patients and, most importantly, a drop in the fatality rate.  

There is no doubt that Jhonny is a Haitian doctor. All his education and training has occurred in-country. There is also no doubt that he is a Haitian hero in the country’s latest fight—a fight against cholera. 

Johnny is not the only soldier in Haiti’s fight with cholera. Every citizen who takes the time to wash his or her hands is a fighter, and millions are doing that.  Our students want to do even more. They want to go out into the neighborhood and draft other fighters.  They want to spread the battle cry and deliver Clorox and other useful ammunition for the battle. They want their fellow Haitians to know that cholera is not something to fear—it is something to fight. 

Is that what the international media wants?  I guess I am not really writing about cholera. I am writing about the press in the time of cholera.