Student nurses travel, help Haiti victims

Three UM-Flint nursing students were already planning on going to the Dominican Republic to help give free medical exams and treatments to people who need their help before the devastating earthquake in Haiti, but now they are also going to help refugees from Haiti who come to the Dominican Republic for help.

“We planned this a long time ago and we knew about this even before the earthquake,” Melissa Allen, senior nursing major, said. “It’s more significant that we’re going to the Dominican Republic now because we’re actually going to help a lot of refugees who come over to the Dominican Republic from Haiti. It definitely impacts our trip more, a lot of the injuries in Haiti were crushing injuries and now we’re having an orthopedic surgeon help with amputations.”

Nursing students Genny Carley and Shawna Moskow with assistant professor of nursing Maureen Tippen will also be traveling with Allen.

The students also asked for donations to take with them to provide the best care they possibly can while they are in the village.

The items that they collected included: children’s T-shirts, tooth brushes, toothpaste, soccer balls, matchbox cars, children’s sandals, soap, condoms, baseball mitts, baseballs, volleyballs, vitamins, pain relief medicine, cold remedies, cough medicine, antibiotics of any type, antibiotic creams, anti-lice medicine, anti-itch creams, anti-fungal creams, Pedialyte, large Ziploc bags, children’s eye glasses and washcloths.

The students will be headed to the Dominican Republic Feb. 12 and will provide health care to a village called San Pedro de Macoris. The Dominican Republic Medical Mission is a collaborative program between the Department of Nursing at UM-Flint and the Midwest Medical Mission based in Toledo, Ohio. This program provides an opportunity for UM-Flint nursing students to work with faculty and health care professionals as part of the Midwest Medial Mission team in a hospital in the Dominican Republic.

Jenny can be reached at jeserwac@umflint.edu.

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