Children’s Mercy nurse brings medical supplies to Haiti

On Jan. 19, a private jet lifted off from Kansas City’s Downtown Airport.

A crew of eight had just heaved more than a thousand pounds of cargo into the aircraft’s belly to prepare for an unfriendly border crossing.

The Falcon jet touched down four hours later on the Santo Domingo International tarmac in Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighbor on Hispaniola island.

“I was extremely excited,” said Erik Bayer, RN, Children’s Mercy Hospital. “I was definitely being called to (go). I was very much at peace.”

Peaceful could seem like an unlikely mindset for a volunteer ready to spirit medical supplies across a heavily patrolled Dominican Republic Haitian border and with one-way passage. But for Bayer this trip, like his others to Haiti, made sense.

“It’s where my heart is,” he said of his seventh trip to Haiti.

Bayer joined seven other volunteers as part of One5Foundation, a medical relief organization headquartered in Leawood, Kan. The team of co-pilots, doctors, translators and Bayer gathered 1,200 pounds of medicines, food, water and tents to distribute to Haiti’s earthquake victims.

In the Dominican Republic, the team hired a driver familiar with weak points along the Dominican Republic Haitian border, a place of tension before the earthquake. Border guards sometimes seize supplies and there are only two daily border openings.

Despite these obstacles, the crew successfully sneaked their disguised medical truck across the border to Port-au-Prince, Haiti with supplies earmarked for an orphanage clinic.

Bayer said he was amazed to see familiar buildings, some sporadically standing and many in rubble.

“I assisted with getting supplies down there,” Bayer said. “It lets me know I’m still contributing to the Haiti relief.”

Time restraint prevented Bayer from providing medical assessments, routine on his previous trips in Haiti.

Bayer spent four days in Haiti during his most recent trip. Bayer said he was disappointed he had to leave so quickly, but plans to return to Haiti in February or March with One5Foundation.

“The follow-up care will be a huge need for the Haitian population,” he said.

Bayer has longtime ties to Haiti. He and his wife founded the Ivy Bayer House of Hope orphanage in Feyton in memory of their daughter. He helped build schools with church missionaries on his first visits, and then joined the Global Orphan Project. Through the Global Orphan Project, Bayer performed health assessments on four different trips for hundreds of children in an orphanage compound.

“I love working with children,” he said.

Bayer said he became passionate about Haiti after his first missionary trip in 1999, embracing their culture, food and music. He describes Haitians as very welcoming, open and generous with what they have. He said he appreciates their simplicity.

“I always feel more at home in Haiti than in the U.S.,” he said.

Bayer encourages nurses to help in Haiti, but said they should be prepared to see gruesome cases, considering the number of amputations, open wounds and deaths.

“(They should) prepare their minds to see things they’ve never seen in the States,” he said.

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