Our Partner In Health: John Chew
Posted on May 26, 2011
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John Chew in front of the future site of Mirebalais Hospital |
Every evening at sunset, Mirebalais Hospital Project Coordinator, John Chew, hikes the rocky hill that overlooks the site of Haiti’s biggest construction project since the January 12th earthquake to witness the fruits of his labor. Oftentimes, he’ll snap a photo, or just simply reflect on the day's work and the progress made. To him, it’s a ritual that reminds him of how he feels each day on the site.
“This is a project that shows hope and gives me hope,” says John in the site’s office shed one humid morning. “After the earthquake, everything was discouraging. There were so many small-scale, temporary projects going on in Port-au-Prince. But here in Mirebalais, I am now able to work on something that is long-term for Haiti, something that is going to make a huge difference.”
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John takes a walk through the site every evening. | |
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The site has office and storage space where plans can be reviewed and staff can take temporary solace from the midday heat. | |
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While giving a tour of the facility, John explains the importance of the hospital's cistern in light of waterborne illnesses like cholera. |
Since October 2010, John has been working for Partners In Health managing the construction of the future national referral and teaching hospital 30 miles north of Port-au-Prince. With over 200 Haitian construction workers on site six days a week to build the 180,000 square foot, 320-bed facility, John has a lot on his shoulders.
But if anyone can make this happen, John is definitely the guy.
John first set foot in Haiti on a church trip 25 years ago. Alongside his three sisters and a nun from his San Francisco-based church, John came for a two-week trip as a college student to work in a professional training school in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Carrefour. Six months later, he read a church newsletter soliciting long-term volunteers to help build schools, churches, and health clinics in Haiti. John and a college buddy soon boarded a plane to Port-au-Prince to spend the next year doing construction around the island.
A year later, the night before their flight home, his friend noticed that John’s bags weren’t packed. While he thought that John was simply feeling emotional after one year of life-altering service, he hadn’t guessed that he would be boarding his return flight home alone.
He also wouldn’t have thought that John wouldn’t return to the United States for another twelve years.
John says you should be careful in Haiti, or you might get bitten by the same Haiti bug that convinced him to stay. John’s humility prevents him from frequently talking about the myriad projects he has worked on over the last twenty-five years in the Lower Artibonite and Central Plateau -- some of Haiti’s poorest regions. It was during these years, many spent working in at a self-sustaining trade school, that he met his future wife who was the head of community development at Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschappelles.
After the earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, John spent more than eight months in Port-au-Prince conducting search and rescue missions and procuring equipment, supplies, and food for desperate hospitals. One morning, while at the Toussait Louverture Airport picking up supplies, he ran into Loune Viaud, PIH/ZL Director of Operations. She informed him of the ceremony that was to take place in Mirebalais – a groundbreaking for the biggest construction project in Haiti since the earthquake. While he agreed politely to attend the event, he wasn’t aware of the scope of the project.
Following the ceremony on July 3, 2010, John was introduced to Dr. David Walton, the hospital’s Project Director, and Jim Ansara, PIH’s Director of Construction. And the rest is history.
For the past eight months, John has been working to build a facility that is more than twice the capacity of PIH’s largest existing hospital in Haiti. With the capacity to see more than 500 patients a day, the Mirebalais Hospital will provide Haitians access to clinical services that are not available in any other public hospital in the country. John is confident that not only will the hospital save lives, but it will also provide jobs so that families can send their kids to school, as well as attract other business to Mirebalais.
Once operational, the hospital will be a national training hospital providing educational opportunities for medical and nursing students. For John, the hospital will be a place that will connect Haiti to the world and will be a place where both Haitian and foreign doctors can learn from each other. But the training has already begun on the construction site. “I love the training aspect of my job,” says John. “Every day, I’m involved in training people to use power tools or to read blue prints, which are new skills for many Haitian workers on the site. By acquiring new skills, these workers will be able to go out and get good jobs and become better bosses.”
John currently lives in Cano, a small village outside of Verrettes, located more than 50 kilometers from Mirebalais, with his wife and three sons aged 17, 16 and 13. John is grateful for how supportive his family has been given he demanding hours of his job—he works sunrise to sunset six days a week. His sons often come to the site on Saturdays to volunteer their time; they see it as an opportunity to give back to their country.
Atop the hill overlooking the site, John expresses how beholden he feels to Haiti, the place he has spent much of his adult life. “I feel indebted to this country for what I have learned here,” says John. “Everyday I learn something. I am indebted to the people and to their love. It has been humbling twenty-five years and I am most grateful to Haiti.”
“This isn’t just a job, it’s a vision,” John continues. “It’s a dream that is coming true right before my eyes. Whatever it takes to get it done, let’s do it.”
