PeoriaStory

New charity in Tazewell County

PEKIN, IL -- From a news release:

Contact: Talena Michels

309-620-4388 * [email protected]

 www.facebook.com/TazewellCares

TAZEWELL CITIZENS ORGANIZING TO IMPROVE COUNTY

January 24, 2020 – A diverse group of people from Tazewell County has started a group, 100+ Who Care – Tazewell County, to pool resources and actions to help local needs.

“We all, as individuals, care deeply about our community and the non-profits that call Tazewell County home,” says founder Talena Michels, “and many of us simply don’t have the time or budget to give as much as we would like. When a friend suggested that I take a look at this model of ‘Speed Philanthropy’ I was hooked. It’s the perfect solution!”

When people donate $50 to a charity, they may wonder whether it makes a difference. But in collective giving means that when 100 people donate $50 at the same time, that’s $5,000 for some worthy cause.

All that’s required of people involved in 100+ Who Care – Tazewell County is that they give $50 and one hour of their time, four times a year. There’s no selling, soliciting items to auction or other donations, no telemarketing or event planning.

Instead, it’s a great opportunity for people to network across a range of interests and backgrounds.

At the beginning of group meetings, everyone will be able to suggest a non-profit organization to get help. Three will be drawn and their advocates will have time to promote their charity. Everyone present will vote and the organization with the most votes will receive the donations.

Our goal is a $5,000 donation each quarter. 

“100+ People Who Care – Tazewell County is open to anyone who cares about Tazewell County and is looking to make a big impact on a local nonprofit,” Michels said.

An initial meeting is scheduled for 6-7p.m. Wednesday, March 4 at the Pekin Public Library, 301 S 4^th St. in Pekin.

For more information, go to www.facebook.com/TazewellCares

Peoria connections with Haiti: inside stories

PEORIA -- Many people from central Illinois are involved in charities that attempt to help Haiti. Below are some accounts of what's really going on there.  The first is from Dr. John Carroll, a founder of Haitian Hearts, which arranges for heart surgery for Haitians.  He writes:

1.  None of what happened or is happening in Haiti is surprising to me. The courage of the Haitian people during adverse circumstances is what I am used to seeing.

 

2.  The international community is a day late and a dollar short as usual. Haiti's government is mainly absent right now. Haiti's government has actually been absent for many years. The Haitian people have no trust in their government whatsoever. Haitian police are executing looters right now. Haitian police have told the people of Cite Soleil to kill gang members that have escaped from the prison when it fell.  

 

Building codes, infrastructure, clean water, basic things needed to be in place like humans deserve, decades before the quake. The quake would still have happened, but recovery would have been much quicker and less lives lost.

 

3.  And why is PAP so densely populated? Because people can't survive in the countryside because the trees have been cut down, deforested, because they use the trees to make charcoal to cook. But with deforestation, the erosion is terrible during the rainy season and the Haitian farmers can't plant and grow crops. So they can't live and wonder in from the country side and live in massive shanty towns in the capital. The shanty towns, frequently named for the area in the countryside (province) where they come from, may have hundreds of thousands of people.

 

Haitian farmers have been hurt by food that comes in from overseas and sold on the market for much less than the Haitian farmer can sell his grain. Haitian farmers work by hand and hoe, not big tractors. They have no good fertilizer.

 

So if PAP, which may be able to accommodate  400,000 people, did not have 3 million people living on top of each other, there would be less chaos and less death now because the epicenter was just a few miles west of PAP. Now, people are fleeing the capital to head out to the pathetic and poor countryside. The roads are damaged even more, the villages are flattened south and west of the capital, and people are even leaving on overcrowded ferries. And we know that overcrowded Haitian ferries don't historically do well. One trip in the early 90's, I saw hundreds of bodies at the General Hospital of people that drowned on a ferry called the Neptune...several thousand people lost their lives on the Neptune, and it barely made international news.

 

4.  The Haitian elite of course has not been interviewed by the media. They really control Haiti and are hunkered down in their big homes, surrounded by security, or have already left Haiti for New York, Montreal, Miami, etc. It used to be said that 40 influential Haitian families controlled 40% of the wealth in Haiti. What plans do Haitians elite have to rebuild Haiti? They have no plan of course. They have their textile factories, etc, which with globalization enslave the Haitian people all the more.

 

5.  The stages of Disaster Medicine are playing out in Haiti. First there is the acute injuries and confusion. Extrication of victims is on everyone's mind. Now we are entering Stage II of infection, lack of water, new water borne diseases, lack of security, lack of housing, new orphans, and what we all forget is the psychological trauma of surviving an earthquake while your family doesn't.

 

6.  Maria and I have probably received or sent 400-500 emails or phone calls in the last 8 days. My patients call from Haiti or send an indirect message through a friend or send a message via internet. Many Haitian Hearts patients are homeless and living on the street. You can listen to a voice mail I received last night from a Haitian friend living on the sidewalks begging for help. They have lost all of their medicine and all of their material goods. Of all the patients we have played a roll in bringing to the US for surgery, we have lost one 7 year old girl who was killed instantly in her house as the quake hit. She had been operated in Saint Louis a couple of years ago.

 

7.  Haiti's future is uncertain to say the least. It will take decades to "recover".At least one silver lining is that the world for the first time has seen the courage of the Haitian people and their suffering. Most of Haiti's days have been bad during the last 29 years that I have been working there. This will be the worst natural disaster ever recorded in the Americas in my opinion.

 

These are a few of my thoughts about the disaster....

 

Again, an ounce of prevention would have been worth a pound of cure...the camera crews will leave shortly, and Haitians will have some help, but not enough.

-- Dr. John Carroll

This commentary is from Pat Sloan of Hands Helping Haiti.  The website gives some information, and here's more:

Our group is a 501(c)(3).  We have people involved primarily between Peoria and Rockford, Illinois.  We sponsor a clinic in Hinche and just built a school last year near Jacmel.  We sponsor a number of children and the school as well.  We have 4 Haitian staff.

Thank goodness our school and staff are OK.  All the children we've found have been OK, although most of their houses have been damaged or destroyed.  We stay somewhat in contact, but it is very difficult, because the cell phone system is not working well and they are not getting new fuel for their generators yet.

We do at least one medical clinic per year which involves 12 - 20 from the states and about the same number from Haiti.  We will be rescheduling our trip for as soon as we can.  We've been preparing for months to go down Feb. 1, but that won't happen now.

I help with the clinic and the school construction, but mostly now about our water filter project which we were on the verge of starting production.  It will be somewhat delayed, but this earthquake just points out even more that safe drinking water is of utmost importance.

 -- Pat Sloan

 

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Hospital scrutinizes patient instead of providing care

PEORIA -- When a former patient at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center applied for financial aid to pay for a minor test there, the hospital didn't say no. Instead it questioned whether she was legally entitled to be in the USA.

The patient happened to be affiliated with Haitian Hearts, a Peoria charity which brings heart patients to the USA for treatment.

St. Francis contacted the US Consulate in Haiti to ask about the patient, Haitian Hearts founder Dr. John Carroll said. The Consulate contacted Carroll on April 8, and he responded with the facts about the patient, Heurese Joseph.

Joseph, 30, has a valid medical visa that does not expire until mid-May.

She had heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in December and is now recuperating in Peoria, Carroll said. To save a 7-hour drive to Cleveland, Carroll asked about getting an echocardiogram for her at St. Francis, to check her progress.

Joseph and Carroll hoped to get a reduced rate for the test, and were told that Joseph could apply to the OSF Charity Assistance Program.

Joseph filled out the application form and wrote a letter describing her medical and financial status and submitted them to OSF.

But after delaying three weeks, St. Francis contacted the Consulate in Haiti, Carroll said, claiming that Joseph was seeking charity care in Peoria.

This action by OSF confused the Consulate in Haiti. The Consulate wanted to know if Joseph had been operated on at Cleveland Clinic, as her visa had stated, Carroll said.

OSF had been told that she had been operated on at Cleveland Clinic and simply needed an outpatient echocardiogram. An OSF cardiologist had agreed to read the echocardiorgram at no charge for Joseph.

The hospital could simply have refused the care, as it has done for other Haitian Hearts patients since it decided to oust the charity from its doors a few years ago.

Instead, its action could be interpreted as an attempt to jeopardize any US care for Haitian Hearts patients by implying fraud. The medical visas are very difficult to obtain, Carroll said.

Carroll is furious. "This is evil," he said. "St. Francis should not have called the Consulate on a girl who needs an echocardiogram. She was their patient. She is their patient."

Joseph received her initial life-saving heart surgery at St. Francis in 2002. Haitian Hearts and Carroll have been following her in Haiti every since. Haitian Hearts supplies her with medication year round and echocardiograms in Port-au-Prince.

But St. Francis, a Catholic, not-for-profit hospital, has refused to provide her or other Haitian Hearts patients any follow-up surgery, even if Haitian Hearts pays for it.

St. Francis "won't take any of them back," Carroll said. "This is patient abandonment."

The hospital's actions raise many questions. Does OSF routinely question the legal status of other charity patients? If so, how do they decide whom to question? Do they take second looks only at brown or black skinned charity patients? Or those with Spanish last names? Or just those affiliated with Haitian Hearts?

Carroll was a prominent and respected emergency room physician at St. Francis for two decades, and he also founded Haitian Hearts, which brought destitute children and teens from Haiti to St. Francis for heart surgery. Without it, they would die, he said.

But after he questioned some of the hospital's emergency room procedures in 2001, he was fired. Then the hospital soon ousted the Haitian Hearts program, likely because its fund raising competed with the hospital's own fund raising for a new children's hospital.

For an in depth account of Carroll's struggles with St. Francis and Haitian Hearts, see his blog.

St. Francis has been asked to comment on this post, and any reply will be posted here as soon as possible.

-- Elaine Hopkins

UPDATE 4/11/09: No response from St. Francis. Happy Easter everyone.