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Local Therapist Trains Counterparts in Haitian Rehab Efforts



The first thing that East Aurora’s Dr. Sarah Pictor and I had to decide when we met last week (on her birthday, by the way) was which of the many fascinating facets of her life we should talk about first.

She and husband Bill (an investments broker and part-time woodworker at Schoolhouse Gallery) are chairs of the annual Roycroft Chamber Music Festival, which celebrates its 26th season in June. We’ll be covering that at the Advertiser soon. She also teaches hippotherapy (using the movement of a horse in therapy) in her role as professor of physical therapy at D’Youville College. That too, will make a compelling story in the coming months.

Dr. Sarah Pictor with a young patient in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Image Courtesy of Community Rehab Project Haiti

But what we decided to talk about first was the inspirational Community Rehab Project Haiti that D’Youville has endorsed and supported with Pictor as its prime mover.

The Community Rehab Project Haiti makes use of Pictor’s generous spirit and her expertise in pediatric physical therapy as well as the latest in communications technology. Working in concert, therapists here in Buffalo, like Pictor and Ginger Oliver, founder of the project, advise technicians 1,700 miles away in one of the world’s most impoverished countries so they can treat their patients with modern physical therapy techniques and procedures.

Pictor’s and D’Youville’s involvement in the rehab project came about when she connected serendipitously with Haitian rehabilitation technician Cedieu Fortilus while he was visiting the U.S. in 2016. Fortilus manages a rehab clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and also manages a soccer team called Team Zaryen, made up of amputees. (Zaryen is the creole word for tarantula, a spider that manages to survive and thrive even while missing a limb.)

Fortilus told Pictor about the rehab project in Haiti and its founder, physical therapist Oliver from Vernon, NY. Immediately drawn to her mission, Pictor invited Oliver to D’Youville in April 2017.

“Listening to Ginger Oliver speak and hearing the plight and disadvantages that these children endure and realizing I’ve got an expertise here that needs to be shared, I thought it was time for me to make a trip to Haiti.” Pictor said.

Three months later, she traveled to Port-au-Prince to see the situation for herself. She discovered a kind of poverty we can’t even imagine. Little or no access to refrigeration means that food is in danger of being spoiled or is laced with preservatives that cause high blood pressure. Sanitation is subpar, to be kind. Water quality is suspect. Much of the damage from the 2010 earthquake remains unrepaired. And medical services are sorely lacking.

“Estimates are that in the whole country of Haiti (11 million people) there are seven physical therapists and not a single occupational therapist.”

She found that the incidence of limb loss, injury and trauma patients needing physical therapy is very high and prosthetic devices for amputees are a luxury out of reach for most Haitians.

And of course, it would be a rare Haitian in an economy where the average income is two or three dollars a day, who could pay for any medical service. So Ginger Oliver and her non-profit, Community Rehab Project Haiti pay for everything through donations and grants.

After relating her experiences in Haiti to D’Youville president Dr. Lorrie Clemo, Pictor had no trouble convincing her that D’Youville, should not only get involved, but that it should embrace the project, using the know-how from the healthcare disciplines at the institution.

In October of 2017, Fortilus arrived on the D’Youville campus. Joining him was Wilfrid Macena, a prosthetics tech from Haiti and the captain of Team Zaryen, The duo, who met when Macena was trapped under a collapsed wall and Fortilus was helping with rescue operations, received some hands-on training in physical therapy from students, faculty and community clinicians. Pictor, through a friend of a friend, found a woman who could act as translator for the pair, who speak creole, a language that is specific to Haiti and is neither French nor Spanish. “With the translator’s help we began training the trainers,” said Pictor.

The visitors learned about nutrition and the feeding of injured children, splinting, diabetes, stroke screening and much more. They were given special laptops to take home to help them participate in telemedicine—sending images as well as clinical notes and diagnoses by phone, internet, satellite—so they could get advice from Pictor and other healthcare professionals as patients came to them. Unfortunately, the internet infrastructure, like most infrastructure in Haiti, is haphazard at best, so Pictor and her colleagues have had to battle to keep lines of communication open, secure and consistent. But a member of the occupational therapy faculty who did her doctorate in telemedicine has, in the spirit of interprofessional collaboration, turned her attention to improving the situation.

Fortilus returned to D’Youville last September for two weeks. While he learned more physical therapy skills and telemedicine technology, the D’Youville students benefited as well, since they acted as instructors for the Haitians with faculty serving as advisors. Pictor was impressed that the student body warmed to the presence of this visitor in their midst by including him in dining hall meals, taking him to a soccer game, involving him in their activities and even holding a benefit to raise funds for his clinic. And faculty from across the disciplines expressed their willingness to lend their specific talents to the program. D’Youville, signaling a further commitment to the program, agreed to help fund a guest house attached to a clinic in Haiti that will house Pictor and other visiting D’Youville faculty and perhaps one day, D’Youville students.

From the left is Dr. Sarah Pictor; Wilfrid Macena, prosthetics tech, Haiti; Dr. Lorrie Clemo, D’Youville College president; and Cedieu Fortilus, physical therapy tech, Haiti.  Image Courtesy of Community Rehab Project Haiti

Further giving Pictor optimism about the future of the rehab project is D’Youville’s planned health services facility called the HUB on the school’s West Side campus. The 50,000 square foot HUB will house a clinical training center, featuring another learning environment for students, those seeking retraining and certification, while offering families in D’Youville’s West Side neighborhood greater access to high-quality primary care services.

The HUB could become an impact center for the Community Rehab Project Haiti that would serve the regional Haitian community and bring support for Pictor’s and Oliver’s quest to offer quality physical therapy services in Haiti and around the world.

It’s a tall order bringing health services to a third world country, but Pictor embodies the spirit of hope and giving. She recounts the Haitians’ long history of natural disasters and economic hardships and talks of the challenges children face, especially those that need medical care.

“It sometimes feels like a losing battle,” she says, “but if you make the difference in one life, you’ve done pretty well.”

To find out more about the project, visit D’Youville’s website at www.dyc.edu/about/leadership/initiatives/haiti-rehab-project.aspx. Or go to the project’s site at communityrehabproject.com.

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