In the News
After being paralyzed, Lonez returns to daily living with assistance from Rehabilitation Program.
By Kelly Gannon, HAS Intern
Lonez Vilmont, from the small town Pont Joue, had a job in the rock quarry hand cutting limestone. Life was not easy for Lonez, but he managed to keep his family alive and healthy. However in April of this year while Lonez was working, the quarry's hillside collapsed launching several large rocks from above him. One boulder hit Lonez in the back, flattening him to his stomach. His wife and sister were the first on the scene to pull him out from under the rubble.
Lonez was taken to the medical center in Petite Rivière and then transferred to Hôpital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) Haiti . The HAS surgical team provided life-saving acute care, but nonetheless he fractured his vertebrae, leaving him unable to move his legs, control his bowel or bladder functions, and have no sensation below the waist.
Lonez describes his family and neighbors as screaming and crying after the accident. “Thanks to God and to HAS,” he said, “I went home after 24 days in the hospital.” His family and the community rejoiced upon his arrival, no one believed that he would live.
Now back home, Lonez continues to receive therapy from Shaun Cleaver.
HAS was able to save his life but now this young man with a wife and five children faces the new challenge of being paralyzed. Fortunately for Lonez and many other residents of the Artibonite Valley , a new rehabilitation program is beginning at HAS through a partnership with Friends of Hôpital Albert Schweitzer Haiti (FHASH) and Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO). The Rehabilitation Technician Training Program (RTTP) will train well-rounded rehabilitation professionals to provide these much needed services throughout the HAS service area, seamlessly integrating the hospital's program. Shaun Cleaver, Coordinator of Rehabilitation Services Development, is organizing the program and works with Lonez so that he can reach his full potential.
While in the hospital, the first stage of rehabilitation included working to avoid bedsores and pneumonia. Cleaver and Yvrose Thelusma, a nurse with on-the-job-training in physical therapy, worked with his family to stretch Lonez's limbs and rotate his body position. After two weeks the therapy focused on teaching Lonez to move around by himself, especially by using his arms. Finally, in the last stages, the rehabilitation technicians taught Lonez and his family how to transfer him in and out of a wheelchair and to operate the chair.
Now that Lonez is at home, Cleaver continues therapy there and monitors his situation. The hospital is a relatively easy place to move around but this is not the case in the home. In Haiti , houses often have dirt floors, paths are rocky and narrow and roads are poorly paved, making navigating a wheelchair very difficult. Cleaver also works with Lonez's wife and family to show them how to stretch Lonez's legs, and avoid problems like bed sores.
In Haiti today, most citizens are not aware of the functional potential of people with spinal cord injuries leading to immobility, depression and neglect from family members. This trend unleashes a downward spiral that leads to a poor quality of life and oftentimes a premature death from the secondary effects of lung and skin infections. Fortunately, rehabilitation has created new hope for Lonez by revealing the path to recovery and by providing the means to get there. Cleaver, Thelusma and others with the Rehabilitation Technician Training Program work in the hospital and in the homes of their patients to help them increase their life expectancy and function again in society.
Lonez says that Cleaver does many things for him, making it possible to continue living. “He visits me like I am his son,” says Lonez, “I am very grateful for Shaun and the Rehabilitation Program.”