Jeff Raabe

When many Chattanooga-area Catholics hear about Haiti, they don’t think of a nebulous island country in the Caribbean Sea.

They think, instead, of a place they’ve supported and, perhaps, been to on a mission trip.

Area Catholics from several parishes, and other residents who have worked in or supported efforts in the country, will come together on Saturday, May 3, at a free breakfast at Notre Dame High School to support the construction of a full-service hospital in the village of Petite Riviere de Nippes.

“Access to health care there is at a minimum,” said Fran Rajotte, development director of Visitation Hospital Foundation of Nashville, which is planning the project. “It is significantly under what we would consider good care.”

According to the organization, there are only 30 hospitals in the country that serve a population of 8 million.

A hospital built to American standards not only will help the underserved Haitian population but also will assist medical mission teams, VHF executive director Theresa Patterson said in a news release.

“When medical teams traveled to their sister parishes over the years,” she said, we realized the need to construct a full-service hospital ... where these teams could refer patients. All the physicians who travel to Haiti strongly support the hospital. It is badly needed.”

In January, the Nashville foundation opened and dedicated a health care clinic in the Southwest Haiti village. The inpatient hospital will be adjacent to the clinic, which was designed by a team led by former Chattanoogan Alan Dooley of Nashville’s Dooley Associates.

VHF was founded in 1999 by the Parish Twinning Program of the Americas, which pairs parishes in the United States and Canada with parishes and projects in Haiti.

Locally, Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Jude parishes are two of the 350 parish pairings.

Jeff Raabe, a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, said he has headed the church’s Haiti committee for several years and visited there himself.

“Once you’ve been there, it stays in your heart,” he said. “You have to stay involved.”

In Haiti, Mr. Raabe said, there are two choice for patients with anything but the most basic medical problem: come to the United States for treatment or die.

The first phase of the hospital construction, which is scheduled to cost just under $1 million, will include an ambulatory surgery center, expanded staff quarters and maintenance.

Ninety percent of funds raised from the breakfast will go directly into an account to construct the hospital, according to VHF officials.

Additional phases will be completed over the next five to six years, depending on the fundraising of what is likely to be a $3 million cost, Ms. Rajotte said.

Already, she said, the health care clinic treats 80 to 90 people a day with a staff of three doctors, three nurses, a pharmacist and combination lab technician/radiology technician.

“We have already outgrown it,” Ms. Rajotte said.

However, she said the country’s Ministry of Health has seen the clinic’s good work and has asked that it be a regional AIDS testing center.

Ms. Rajotte said the clinic has 20 employees, only one of whom is an American.

“So we are helping the community economically now and will (continue to do so) over the future of the construction project,” she said.

Petite Riviere de Nippes is about four hours by car and one hour by helicopter from the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

When the hospital is built, if the patients can get to the capital, VHF will try to arrange transportation to the hospital, Ms. Rajotte said.

Next week’s fundraising event, called Hope and Healing for Haiti, will feature a message by Chris Devaney, state director for U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, and speeches by Chattanoogans who have made medical mission trips to the country.

Guests will be given an opportunity to make a pledge or a one-time gift to the project.

Similar future fundraising events will be held in Nashville, Greenwich, Conn., and Sarasota, Fla.

IF YOU GO

* What: Hope and Healing for Haiti.

* When: 9 a.m. Saturday, May 3.

* Where: Notre Dame High School, 2701 Vermont Ave.

* Admission: Free.

* Phone: 463-8324.