Power to Make a Difference
Long lasting partnerships allow World Hope International(WHI) to walk with others in sustainable ways by being able to solve difficult problems that may come up. Below is a story of WHI’s partnership with the only hospital on LaGonâve Island, Haiti. This story was first published in September 2019 by The Wesleyan Church, written by WHI’s Dan Irvine.
Imagine going to the hospital with a bursting appendix and the hospital is dark; the power is out. Picture yourself as a doctor in the middle of an intense operation and the lights go off, the machines power down and suddenly you’re operating without the ability to see clearly and without working support machines. You hope the generator will kick in, but it doesn’t, leaving patients needing oxygen or life support without both. The generator runs on fuel and fuel has been running short of late.
This is exactly the scenario being faced right now at LaGonâve Wesleyan Hospital (Hospital Wesleyan de La Gonâve), a hospital located in the city of Anse-à-Galets on the Haitian island of LaGonâve. This hospital was started by medical missionaries of The Wesleyan Church and has been in operation for more than 60 years. The missionaries responded to the harsh reality that people — especially children and infants — were dying from preventable diseases and realizing if they were going to be Christ in the community, they should care for the body as well as the soul.
World Hope International (WHI) has long worked as the international development partner with the Wesleyan Mission in Haiti, implementing projects such as solar-powered water desalination systems, ice manufacturing (WHI’s first project in Haiti), sustainable agriculture, HIV/AIDs education and child sponsorship programming. Today, WHI is working with the Wesleyan Mission in Haiti to make sure that the hospital power becomes reliable at long last. How?
When the new hospital was built following a 2010 earthquake, a generous donor gifted the hospital with a substantial solar system array. In a recent evaluation, it was determined that the basic controllers were still functional, but repairs were needed to some of them and the batteries were running at less than half capacity. Engineers recommended the control system be repaired and upgraded; the number of solar panels be doubled, and that a change be made in the kind of solar storage — going from lead-acid batteries to Tesla wall units, which are much more effective and virtually maintenance free. Bonus: they will also perform better in the Caribbean heat.
In fact, these improvements will enable the hospital to finally achieve energy independence for the next 10 years minimum and, with the generator (currently operating at least 50 percent daily when fuel is available) being relegated to actual emergency-use only, the carbon footprint of the hospital will be virtually eliminated… Read the full story>>
This blog was written by Dan Irvine and is cross-posted from The Wesleyan Church. To help us cover the costs for this solar-power project, you can make a gift here. You can also support this and other transformative projects by making a gift to The Hope Fund.