In todays Peoria Journal Star on page A8 is an article with a title "Haitians' Struggles for Food Worsen". Immediately below this article is an advertisement by OSF with the title "85 Doctors Redefining Healthcare".
This past week in Haiti has been terrible. Food riots gripped Haiti. There were strikes, violence, and chaos. The Haitian people are very hungry. Can you imagine how Americans would act under similar circumstances?
As the Journal reports, "Hunger has long been a fact of life in the overcrowded slums that rim the Haitian capital, but soaring food prices have made the struggles of Haiti's poor unbearable. The price of rice has doubled and the violence has only made things worse.
"Globally, food prices have risen 40 percent since mid-2007. Haiti, where most people live on less than $2 a day, is particularly affected because it imports nearly all of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice.
"Much of Haiti's once-productive farmland has been abandonded as farmers struggle to grow crops in soil decimated by erosion, deforestation, flooding and tropical storms. To make a profit, the farms that remain often price their crops sharply higher than imported American products, which benefit from generous U.S. government subsidies".
And OSF's advertisement is an embarrasment. It states "one patient at a time" and calls itself an "outstanding healthcare system dedicated on one thing...serving you with the greatest care and love."
In a society that can't feed its population, safe heart surgery is impossible.
Jackson and Maxime are both dead. They were not taken care of with "the greatest care and love". Other Haitian Hearts patients are slowly dying as OSF builds new multi-million dollar buildings and looks the other way. These Haitians are being neglected by OSF when they need OSF's skilled doctors and nurses to stay alive.
Haiti is suffering through its worst days in its history. And so is OSF in Peoria.
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