I wrote earlier (see October 19, 2013 post, Peaks and Valleys) about the peaks and valleys of working in Haiti and of doing science. This week was another example. We had delay after delay in getting the autoclave installed and operational. On Sunday, the last piece of the installation was complete. On Monday, Rick (from the company who assembled the autoclave) arrived to verify the installation and test out the machine. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Rick took us through the steps of operation and now we have a working, large capacity autoclave worthy of a microbiology lab!
On Monday, I also finally received a cost center for my AFHSC-GEIS grant. This means that I can now spend the money that I was awarded for the project. Remember that the award was made on October 3, 2013. Money for the first quarter was sent to USU. I emailed back and forth for three months asking when I could have the cost center to start buying things I needed. The first quarter came and went and still no cost center. Finally on January 13, 2014, two weeks after the first quarter of my project ended, I received a cost center to begin buying things. Was the delay due to excessive bureaucracy or errors/incompetence in the processing chain? I have no idea and I do not particularly care where the fault lies. I just want it fixed so that this type of delay does not happen again. I want to do my work. It is a disgrace and an embarrassment to a University that considers itself a world-class research institution.
On Tuesday, three people from the CDC in Port-au-Prince came to visit the lab. They brought along the head of the Molecular Section of the National Labs in PAP. I had been working since October to connect with someone at CDC-PAP. Just before Christmas I connected with Rob Burris and we set up the visit. It was great. Meer and I gave them the tour of the lab and talked about the various projects that we have going on. They were impressed. We talked about common interests. We talked about vision and how to plan for the long term in Haiti, what are we (UF and USU) are interested in doing and the CDC’s plans for Haiti. I think we share a common vision of what needs to be done. It is complicated and it all involves money; how does one fund a sustained research/public health presence in Haiti? We all need to work on solutions.
Before lunch, we showed our visitors the UF house under construction and asked our construction manager, Solomon, to explain the concept of foam core panel construction. Our guests were astonished by the simplicity of foam core and its low cost. This part of the tour provided an unexpected bonus. It turns out that the National Labs put out a call for bids to construct a blood bank building in PAP. The bids were all pretty high, around $9-10 million. Solomon told them the building could be done for $4-6 million if foam core was used, and it could be done quicker. So apart from the science, our guests learned about another (better, cheaper and more secure) form of building construction. It was a very good visit.
Later that same day, the valley. After more than seven months of work, email exchanges and phone calls, trying to get Pfizer to donate drugs for treatment of the participants in our STI surveillance, our request was declined. The panel determined that our request was supporting a research project and thus was “noncompliant” with their donations policy. I was very disappointed. But the STI project will go on as planned. I encouraged Jim and Sandy at Haiti Health Ministries to try and request donation of the drugs from Pfizer without me. If my “research” was what killed the donation request, maybe they can get the donation without me.
On Friday, things got better, much better. In the space of 20 minutes, I received emails from two people offering to help me ship my equipment from the US to Haiti on military transport planes via the Denton Program. That same afternoon, Team Micro back in Bethesda finally convinced the Jackson Foundation to agree to let me have a pre-paid credit card to shop for stuff in PAP!!!!! That also took over a month, dozens of emails, and some creative thinking to make happen. Thank you Lori, Kim, and Lucille.
It has been an excellent week. And tomorrow Pierre arrives in PAP for three months to work as the Assistant Project Coordinator for Meer.
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