Photographs by William Taufic.
When speaking recently to a Stamford parish about Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Haiti, Dr. Flynn said, “Everywhere we are confronted by bad news, but I have a good news story for you!” It’s about a lone doctor and an eight-bed clinic being transformed into a sixty-four-bed hospital with fifteen full-time doctors. It’s a story that might have remained a fantasy without Dr. Flynn’s dedication over the past eighteen years.
“A most beloved retired pediatrician in New Canaan, Dr. Flynn has made a tremendous difference in the lives of many people in Haiti,” comments Nancy Helle, a New Canaan mom whose children had Dr. Flynn as their pediatrician.
Several factors compelled the doctor to get involved in Haiti. “It goes back to when I was leaving Johns Hopkins to come to New Canaan,” explains Dr. Flynn. “Realizing that Fairfield County is not like the rest of the world, I vowed that I would eventually go to a Third World country as a sort of payback for all the blessings I have received. I heard through the Order of Malta about this hospital in Haiti and began studying medical Creole. At the end of ’94, my son took over the practice here, and we started going to Haiti twice a year.”
That was the second stroke of luck for the hospital in the village of Milot. The first came when Dr. Dubuque of St. Louis survived a near fatal illness. “If he recovered, he promised God he’d devote the rest of his life to helping others,” explains Dr. Flynn. Dubuque fulfilled his vow in Milot. “He went down to Haiti in 1986 and in the first six months did 250 procedures. His colleagues back home asked how they could help. That started the tradition of teams going down for a week or more, at their own expense.”
Dr. Flynn’s two-week trips mushroomed into a full-time job in 2003 when he went from board member to president of the hospital: “Dr. Dubuque decided to retire and put me in charge of the search committee. He had been doing all of the work—fundraising, ordering supplies, scheduling. It was a lot of work for a volunteer. I couldn’t find anyone. So I took over from ’03 to ’06.”
“The big change occurred with the earthquake,” continues Dr. Flynn. “There was very little damage in Milot. We increased to 100 beds from sixty-four. At first nothing happened. Then there were ten, fifteen, twenty helicopters arriving each day, each with four to six patients. The Order of Malta and Caritas Health Care network gave a tent hospital. At the end, there were 420 beds and 110 doctors working eighteen hours a day. It was incredible.”
Eighty at the time, Dr. Flynn flew down and supervised the tent hospital, organized volunteers and acted as a liaison to healthcare organizations. He came away from the experience impressed by “the tremendous generosity of the American people, and the enthusiasm and expertise of the volunteers and their total respect for the poor Haitian people. If I had any suspicion of the youth of America, my doubts were certainly allayed there.”
Since the disaster, Dr. Flynn says, “The government recognized the hospital as a major player. Now it’s a teaching institution for the Haitians.” Hôpital Sacré Coeur currently cares for 50,000 patients annually, and 1,250 surgeries are performed there each year.