Healing the Sickness, One Patient at a Time

by Jung Tsai MD, president of NATMA

Dr. Jung Tsai and his medical team just returned from a humanitarian health mission trip to Haiti. Dr. Tsai is a general and vascular surgeon at RWJ University Hospital at Rahway NJ and he is President of the North American Taiwanese Medical Association which is comprised of approximately fifteen hundred dentists and physicians of varying specialties. Since 2003, this association has provided annual medical missions to the needy in various Caribbean nations. This year, Dr. Tsai selected Haiti because there is a strong Haitian immigrant presence at Rahway hospital and in the Elizabeth, N.J. area.

The team, laden with medical supplies and equipment, left Kennedy to land in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. On arrival they were greeted by the Haitian Health Department, Foreign Ministry and television camera crews. Haiti is perhaps the most destitute country in the western hemisphere largely due to political unrest, consequently, the majority of Haitians fail to receive even basic healthcare. During the five days that Dr. Tsai’s team was in Haiti, they were able to provide medical and dental care and surgical procedures to approximately fifteen hundred patients.

The team spent the first and second days in Port-au-Prince treating basic maladies that are easily remedied in our country but go untreated in Haiti; high blood pressure, skin diseases, infection, malnutrition and diabetes. On the third and fourth days Dr. Tsai’s team relocated to a countryside hospital Clinic in Port-Salut where the responsibility of medical care was dependent on the efforts of only one mid-wife, two physicians(one Cuba trained and one part time Cuba export), neither of whom were surgeons. Dr. Tsai established the operating room at the hospital and in forty-eight hours performed 35 surgical procedures including operations on various small tumors, breast lumps, hernia, hydrocele, parotid abscess, and fractures. At the same time, the medical team, including Trinitas staff member, Dr. Michel-Ange Ferdinand, and his wife, Joseline,and NATMA physicians provided two months medical supplies and vitamins for diabetes, high blood pressure, infections, cardiac conditions and malnutrition’s. The Dental teams brought portable dental equipment to the field were the most effect and welcome parts of the teams.

The medical team returned home exhausted but satisfied from the reward of helping people, changing lives and improving the community in Haiti. Not only did our doctors and dentists heal the sick but more importantly, provided hope and inspiration to the Haitian community, empowering them through better health to make a better tomorrow for themselves.