Archive for the ‘Community Acupuncture’ Category

« Older Entries

CommuniChi at the Seattle Race Conference

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

For those of you who could not attend the Seattle Race Conference, I’m sharing an edited transcript of the talk I gave there. I hope to post a ten minute video on You Tube soon. Thanks especially to Dove John and Jacque Larrainzar for their help at the conference. Jacque co-presented with me. Look for notes from her talk coming soon.

Hi, My name is Jordan Van Voast, I work at CommuniChi, a community acupuncture clinic on Beacon Hill in Seattle. I’m excited to be here today with Jacque Larrainzar  to help facilitate this conversation around racism and health care and to make new friends and allies in this work.. As Jacque and I are going to talk about, the beginning, middle, and end of this work is all about community.  Building community so that we can create healthy community. So today, you are my community and I’m hoping that in the next hour  we can all learn something together and maybe share some laughs.

Any doctors in the room?  No? Okay then. Did you hear the one about the  patient who asked a doctor whether he could get acupuncture? The doctor said, “we don’t use acupuncture here, we just stick you with the bill!” Or, the patient who called her acupuncturist and said her back was hurting?  The acupuncturist said “take two thumb tacks and call me in the morning”.

Too often conference presentations are left brained intellectual, inside the box thinking – which misses the entire point of how to connect as community with our whole hearts and minds. We need to share information, but we also need to experience the power of community as transformative energy, so we can reshape dysfunctional power systems to serve us instead of oppress us. So let’s start with some Qi Gong exercises in a circle and feel our breath go in and out of our bodies.

What is acupuncture? – acupuncture is the insertion of hair fine needles into specific points of the body for the purpose of healing.  Recent evidence suggests it may be at least 7000 years old and not exclusively from China. A corpse found mummified inside a glacier near the Austrian-Italian border had tattoos on his body at or near several acupuncture points. However, the most extensive body of literature to be found about acupuncture originates from China beginning around two millenia ago. Today, the WHO recognizes acupuncture as effective for nearly 4 dozen common conditions –  Neuromusculoskeletal – arthritis, insomnia, dizziness, joint pain; Emotional – stress, anxiety, depression; Circulatory – hypertension, angina, anemia; Respiratory – allergies, asthma, emphysema, bronchitis; Gastrointestinal – nausea, indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, gastritis, ulcers. It’s quite comprehensive, and except for surgery, it can treat anything that pills can treat, though from a completely different paradigm.

Many people seem to think that acupuncture came to the U.S. in 1972 following Nixon’s visit to China, but in fact, Chinese immigrants brought it with them in the 1850s.

The theory underlying health in Chinese medicine is based upon the balance between Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang correspond to relational pairs within any system or conceptual framework: Mind-Body. Man and Nature. Male-Female. Winter-Summer, Night-Day, Moon-Sun, White-Black. So this interdependence, and interconnection is not limited to medicine, but extends to everything, including the social environment. The health of each one of us is related to the health of all humanity and the Earth ecosystem as a whole. So extrapolating from this basic tenet of Chinese medicine, one can infer that because humanity is a circular family, where all of us are connected in one way or another, racism harms everyone. That’s why it’s important to stop it, in all its many hidden manifestations.

Let’s talk about acupuncture education. In the U.S., in order to be an acupuncturist, one needs to complete a 3-4 year Masters level program in order to practice.  The cost to attend acupuncture school…and this should be your first clue as to the institutional racism that exists in this profession…has skyrocketed in the past 15 years.

•              1995: $20 to $30,000 total;

•              2010: $75,000 to $125,000.

•              So obviously that’s going to place a lot of restrictions on who gets to practice acupuncture, where it is practiced, and for whom.

So let’s look at the racism and classism in acupuncture in a bit more depth…

•              High Cost of Services. Typically, $65 to $200 per session at most clinics. So a course of treatments could easily run from five hundred to several thousand dollars, since most conditions require multiple sessions. The upper middle class assumption here seems to be that insurance should pay. Unfortunately, insurance coverage in America is increasingly a marker of racial disparity and as Michael Moore pointed out in the movie, “Sicko”, managed care does not have as it’s main purpose, taking care of the public, but instead, is focused on maximizing profits for shareholders.

•              Acupuncturists are taught in practice management classes to “charge what you are worth”, bizarrely linking one’s self esteem with the degree of audacity one has by setting high fees. From a community perspective, one’s worth would logically be tied to what you give to the community, not how much you can get from it.

•              Intellectual Elitism or “the Expert Syndrome” in medicine. And that certainly is present in acupuncture.  As I went through acupuncture school, I felt a certain sense of intellectual smugness in my school. We were considered ourselves ambassadors of precious knowledge but I do not recall a single discussion in any of my classes on issues of white privilege or racial disparity in health care.  Acupuncture and Chinese medicine has a bit of mystical aura to it, so it’s not surprising that there would be a strong tendency to step into a role of high priest classism that looks down on the public, providing ego-justification to exclude large segments of the population.   Another brazen assumption often heard in practice management classes is that people who value their health care will figure out a way to pay your fees, being somewhat clueless to the fact that of course every sane person does value their health, but when faced with a choice between food, rent, and elective, out of pocket health care expenses, will nearly always choose the former over the latter.  Needless to say, this attitude, practically invisible to those who hold it, is intensely alienating to people of color.

In a more general context, the medical profession in America has a history of glorifying itself at the expense of those it is designed to support.  Although medical historians refer to “ heroic medicine” as  having ended 150 years ago, the unspoken assumption prevails to this day,  that disease can be objectified as a particular virus or form of cancer and that the preferred mode of treatment is surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy. One can draw parallels between the sword of the conquistador and the internalized militarism of medicine. I’m not suggesting for a moment that people forgo conventional medical care for cancer or AIDS. Once the body has reached a certain state of disequilibrium, then  radical (or conventional depending upon one’s perspective) means are called for. But why not look at disease as a state of imbalance (rather than an evil within), and health  as an empowering awareness that each person is ultimately capable of assessing for themselves?  This dilemma underscores the division between a system of medicine controlled by an elite group of experts versus a medicine that is accessible and affordable for everyone.

The acupuncture profession, in its desire to be accepted by the mainstream medical players of America, is in danger of forsaking its roots as a medicine available to everyone, in order to arrive at the corporate managed care (profits before people) model. Currently, there is a faction within the acupuncture profession pushing for an entry level Doctorate in Acupuncture. In other words, everyone would need to attain this credential in order to practice acupuncture. Great for schools, and bureaucrats, but more barriers for patients, and more unmanageable debt for students. This egotistical reach for grander titles does not acknowledge the reality that most Americans cannot afford the high prices that acupuncturists typically charge, and that trend certainly isn’t going to reverse itself with more years of required education.

And unfortunately, this medical elitism, perpetuates a disempowerment of patients, teaching them that they cannot take responsibility for their own health.  And so we remain trapped in an expensive war on “the enemy” – whether that enemy is internal (virus), or external (terrorist). High medical costs, lack of access to medical care, extensive taxation, and reductions in social services – we are told – are lamentable, but necessary consequences of winning the war (on either front). My local library system is closed for the week, paying off the economic collapse, the origins of which are complex, but for the purposes of this analysis, can be summed up as the end result of an unjust and racist system.  Meanwhile, a few profiteering individuals make millions off of these internal and external wars.

•              Redlining. Another factor is redlining. Redlining is the practice of denying services to specific, often racially determined areas.  Jacque spoke of this in a broader context, and it definitely happens in acupuncture. How does it occur? Simple…acupuncturists…who as a rule, face a difficult challenge succeeding in business, set up their clinics in wealthier, more affluent areas….those areas where people are more able to afford high out of pocket expenses or who would more likely have comprehensive health insurance. In Seattle, that would primarily be in the north end,  which is more white, less racially diverse, in part due to the redlining practices of real estate agents and banks before this practice was exposed.  This is a good example of high institutional racism is compounded and reinforced by multiple causes in a racist society.

•              Medical materialism. Acupuncture is frequently marketed as a spa like experience, with exotic cultural overlays such as Chinese art objects, calligraphy, zen gardens and  waterfalls in the waiting rooms). All of these things are aesthetically pleasing and  appeal to upper middle class materialistic tendencies, but have no functional purpose in terms of optimizing health in the community.  To the extent that acupuncture has become a consumer experience, it is viewed as just another individual relationship that upper class folks can purchase, sending a message to people of color that this medicine is not for them.

•              Privacy. Related to this is our American obsession with privacy. Although there are legitimate areas where privacy values need to be protected, especially in this era of data tracking and data mining, etc….the idea that somehow we all need our own private treatment room for a fully clothed medical procedure is – from a community perspective  – simply another wasteful American practice of overconsuming scarce resources. Private treatment rooms cost money and divides society into those that can afford the room, and those who can’t.  That isn’t to say that in community acupuncture there is no privacy, and all your personal details are shared with everyone in the room. No, that’s definitely not the case….it’s never difficult to arrange a private conversation and usually all it requires is a not so high-tech procedure known as…..w    h    i    s    p    e    r    i   n    g.

•              Lack of diversity amongst practitioners. Very few people of color (except Asians) represented in the acupuncture profession. 70.4% white 21.6% Asian 5.2% “other“. (2010 NCCAOM) Poorly funded study doesn’t even seem to acknowledge that “other” is excluding huge parts of the American population.  According to a recent U.S. census, the American population is 80% white, 13% black, 16% Hispanic, 1% American Indian, 5% Asian. The fact that the National Certification Committee for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine lumps Blacks and Hispanics…who together comprise around 30% of the population in America…  into “other” tells us something about the multi-cultural disconnect in the profession.

•              Acupuncture non-profits and charity clinics – bandaids for a broken system. As a majority of new acupuncture graduates struggle to succeed in their practices many look for any opportunity to practice their skills, providing a constant supply of practitioners willing to volunteer in addiction treatment centers, or in military veteran stress clinics, etc. And while they often provide a much needed service, it does very little to remove the barriers to access facing the vast majority of people of color and working class Americans to getting affordable acupuncture. As Common Ground, an organization that formed in New Orleans after Katrina coined the phrase… “Solidarity, not Charity”. People don’t want hand outs that come with the power dynamic of superior elite condescending to help an unfortunate wretch.  In many of these “charity” clinics, one needs to prove how poor they are before being eligible to receive care. A bitter pill indeed.

•              I helped found a nonprofit called Acupuncturists Without Borders in 2005, after volunteering in post-Katrina New Orleans and was inspired by the opportunity to offer healing skills in a disaster setting. But after going to Haiti in February of this year (with a different organization), I came back to Seattle and spent a lot of time trying to understand the roots of the disaster and where my energies would be most effective to alleviate suffering on the planet. I realized that the root causes of disasters like the New Orleans flood, and the Haiti earthquake – is not simply the weather, or the shifting of tectonic plates beneath the Earth, but the poverty and social oppression which set up the conditions for those disasters to happen.  So this is what we need to fight against, and this will take time, to bring about a society in which all of its members share equally in the basic requisites of a happy, and healthy life. To accomplish that, we need  to organize at the local level, connect with one’s community and to create and support  innovative solutions which change the system, which is the mission of the Community Acupuncture Network.

•              Profit motive (greed). Finally, there is that cherished cornerstone of the American economic system – capitalism, or the profit-motive. As planet Earth teeters under the environmental load of 7 billion humans all fighting for the biggest share of pie, the irrationality of this system should by now be seriously in question by everyone. Not surprisingly, because the media is in the hands of a few people, much smoke and mirrors are still being used to confuse the basic issues of social equity.  For many years, acupuncture schools have used a combination of easy access to Federal student loan money and unrealistic promises to graduates in order to enrich themselves. Right now, the Dept. of Education is conducting a review of these abuses by all colleges, and the comment period on the DOE website is open until September 9. Again, this limits access to acupuncture by making it a very expensive medicine, resulting in higher costs to the consumer, and limiting practitioners to primarily whites,  based on pre-existing economic disparities.

Further limiting access to acupuncture is the fact that large corporations have a vested interest in maintaining the (allopathic/western medical) status quo. Stainless steel needles are super cheap…about two cents a piece, and,  nobody has figured out how to  patent the life force (chi), though many tyrants and dictators have tried. Pharmaceuticals are ridiculously expensive by comparison and it is no secret that in many places of the world, millions of preventable deaths occur due to lack of affordability to medicine.  Therefore, because there are no huge profits to be made in acupuncture in its traditional community context, it is dismissed as quackery. Much of the so-called scientific research in medicine is funded by large drug manufacturers who have a direct interest in promoting their products. Further biasing the so called “evidence based care” is the revolving door employment between government and industry medical elites. It’s a vicious and insane system – many of the  root causes of disease –  toxic wastes,  poisons in our food and water, and the mental stress and trauma which arises out of oppression, are a direct result of the corporate system which sells us the pills to alleviate (but not cure) those problems.

•              So this is just a brief summary of some of the ways in which the healing power of acupuncture as a potential low cost solution for the current failing health care system, has been marginalized by the institutionally racist and classist forces within American culture.

The Solution:  The medicine to heal this is compassion, altruism, and community action.

COMMUNITY ACUPUNCTURE NETWORK (CAN)

•              Founded in 2006 by a group of acupuncturists in Portland, OR who started “Working Class Acupuncture”.

•              Mission Statement: Community Acupuncture Network (CAN) is a nonprofit organization of practitioners, patients, and supporters whose goal is to make acupuncture more affordable and accessible by promoting the practice of offering acupuncture in community settings for a sliding scale ranging within $15-40 a treatment.

•              150+  member clinics in U.S. and internationally.

•              CAN is politically active to challenge the dysfunctional institutionally racist and classist policies of the acupuncture bureaucracy.

•              Community Acupuncture training workshops explore diversity awareness as an integral feature of the curriculum.

•              Excellent article profiling CAN in Yes Magazine 2008.

•              Website: www.communityacupuncturenetwork.org

•            7  member clinics in Seattle. West Seattle, Beacon Hill, Columbia City, Capitol Hill, Fremont, Northgate and Shoreline.

•              Promotes community building by creating a treatment space that connects people to the powerful life energy (Chi, pronounced Chee) uniquely available in a group healing environment.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Community Acupuncture | 1 Comment »

Healing the World – Ending Racism

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Wisdom of the Elders

I had a lovely conversation in the hallway with a Native American man who has an art studio next to my clinic. I had always wanted to get to know him better, but for some reason, I was always too busy to make it happen. Three and half years of being busy. And besides, I’ve smiled at him and said hello, how come he hasn’t stopped to get to know me?  Such is the dimly noticed chatter running through my white race conditioned mind.  But when you think about it, we are guests. My ancestors first came here in the 1600s – perhaps 12 or 15 generations ago – with the Dutch colonization of upstate New York.  His people have been here at least 10,000 years….or about 500 generations. Right! Like I said, we whites are guests here. And the polite thing to do when you are a guest – especially the descendant of conqueror guests – is to take an honest look at history and with renewed humility, act like a guest (instead of a conqueror).

More precisely, the great empire of America is teetering on the precipice of collapse…our economic system which holds as sacred personal profit, has resulted in such environmental plunder, that Planet Earth is in intensive care, and we continue to mortgage our children’s future on dead ends like “military diplomacy” (perhaps an oxymoron). We’ve made a mess of things and if we want to turn it around, we’d do well to listen to the wisdom of a culture that has been here for 10,000 years – even though nearly beaten into extinction. Well, that wasn’t what I set out to write about exactly, but it’s been six weeks since I blogged so I needed to put that out there straight away in order to set my conscience at ease.

Institutional racism is still a hidden evil among us. Why should that concern you? Well, for a more dynamic answer to that question, please consider attending the Seattle Race Conference this weekend. I’ll be giving a presentation there on how institutional racism manifests in my (very white) profession of acupuncture and what I and others are doing to fight and dismantle that. (My presentation is at 245pm in Rainier Hall, Room 210, South Seattle Community College). The short answer is this:

Chinese medicine, and many wisdom teachings such as the First People of Turtle Island (what we call North America) understand that all things live in a delicate balance. All life is part of an integrated, interdependent, mutually reinforcing whole. Therefore, whatever injustice or suffering befalls one person, one living being, on the circle of life, affects us all. Because institutional injustices are allowed to continue, conflicts arise, and these have wide repercussions. Okay, that sounds suitably vague such that if you dear reader consider yourself a person of good fortune, with all your needs and desires taken care of – your kids in a good school, your mortgage paid off, or being paid off, etc. etc. What’s the big deal? Why should you care? Because…and this may take some time to see clearly….until you connect with the struggles of the people around you…until you open to all life on the planet…to understand your, our, higher purpose, of bringing compassion to this planet, to help end the suffering for all, then you are living in a box. Yes, pretty strong words, but I say them knowing that most of the time, I am in the box too.

Time for another segue. Come to the conference if you can. Or at least, do something to see the box and start dismantling it. On a related note…back to my talk…the acupuncture profession has its share of dirty laundry. One of them is that acupuncture colleges in America have long milked the federal government (and your tax dollars), taking advantage of lenient policies to access federal student loan money, which, when combined with extremely unrealistic promises of six figure incomes for graduates, has corrupted our profession in so many ways. It’s time to change the system, and this is one place to start. Please consider submitting a comment to the Department of Education’s website on or before September 9, as they are investigating these abusive practices. Look for the little blue link “Submit Comment” in the upper right portion of the page. Here’s the link to get you there: DOE – Comment on unethical practices at acupuncture colleges.

Thanks, you are awesome – especially when you step outside the box!

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Community Acupuncture, Peace, Social Justice | No Comments »

Community Musings

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Just to the right of the center on the blue green ball, is the Gulf of Mexico, where the now largest oil spill in U.S. history continues unabated. The zone of life on Planet Earth shrinks daily. If you haven’t seen the movie Avatar, check it out. The movie won three Oscars for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Visual Effects. The movie’s director, James Cameron of “Titanic” fame has poignantly captured the madness of the humans – engaged in profit driven resource extraction, utterly disconnected from the sacredness of life.

Things aren’t hopeless here on Earth though.  Far from it! Each one of  us has power – the power to dream, to imagine a different world, and to make that dream reality.  There is no such thing as safe offshore oil exploration – it’s another corporate lie. Meanwhile – despite local variations, the planet is steadily getting warmer. That’s the real danger in our addiction to oil.  Please lobby your elected officials to promote investment in alternative clean energy such as solar and wind.

As a pre-requisite to achieving a sustainable ecosystem that includes humanity, each one of us also needs to walk the path of personal balance, mindful of our physical-emotional-spiritual health. But our window of opportunity is short, the brief candle of this life blown out quickly. Chi tune up anyone? Make an acupuncture appointment.

Follow all the CommuniFun – CommuniChi is on Facebook and Twitter.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Community Acupuncture, Social Justice, Sustainability | No Comments »

From Haiti to Seattle – Spring Musings

Friday, April 16th, 2010

I traveled to Haiti recently, as part of a medical relief mission in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake.  I offered acupuncture to about 140 Haitians in 7 days, held two very cute babies in my arms, saw a lot of malnutrition, hunger and thirst, took hundreds of photographs of collapsed buildings, shanty towns, and abysmal poverty, made a lot of new friends, and then suddenly it was time to come home and attempt to make sense of my experience. Little did I know that it would lead me to become more involved in my own community here in Seattle.

Woman in Haiti

Woman carrying goods - Haiti

In the days and weeks after arriving home, my mind struggled with seemingly unanswerable questions, compounded by a big dose of culture shock: Where did the suffering of Haiti start? What role can I play in supporting the ongoing healing of a battered nation from my seemingly isolated existence in the Pacific Northwest? How should I respond when people ask me, often quite casually, “how was your trip?”  The more I reflected on the roots of the disaster, the more I realize that the shifting Earth is only one causal nexus. The real disaster is poverty and social injustice and that, unfortunately, is an ongoing global disaster since the dawn of humanity.  With proper building codes and applied human intelligence, the death total would have been a small fraction of what it was. Even now, the disaster continues to unfold into further misery – a million people living under tarps, threatened by rains and hurricanes.

Alas, such a shame. And I could simply choose to leave it at that, hop on my plane, return to my privileged existence, and feel good about the time and resources I donated to a good cause. The next disaster will shift our focus elsewhere, and all of us can pour out our compassion and pocketbooks once again, ever keeping a safe distance from the gritty humanitarian issues.

Sometimes it seems that our culture lives somewhere between one crisis and the next. Certainly my own life is no different.  Upon returning, it was time to attend to the daily comings and goings at CommuniChi, catch up with family and friends, swimming lessons twice a week with my daughter, and a myriad of life details, and personal plans.  The vividness and shocking power of my time in the disaster zone faded quickly. Had I learned anything? Had I connected with any deep vision of healing the planet? Was I a changed human being? Or was I merely playing a conditioned role of first world hero, a vicarious tourist, intruding on people’s misery?

Waiting for water in front of the Presidential Palace

The more I engaged in such self-reflection, the more I actively searched for a way to carry this experience forward without merely enshrining it in a list of “good-deeds-I-have-done-in-my-life”.  I got involved in Social Inclusion work at my daughter’s school. I started reading about White Privilege, and signed up for a two day conference on Unlearning Racism through People‘s Institute Northwest.  I talked about Haiti with everyone I met, stayed connected with the medical team that I served with, checking in frequently with a friend who was having trouble re-entering her old life.  I remembered to give thanks often – for clean water, air, nourishing food, good health, access to health care, meaningful work, sunshine, hope, smiles on children’s faces.

I followed Haiti in the news, looked at the pictures of the rubble, and remembered the faces of the people that still remain homeless, lacking the basic necessities of life, not forgetting them in my prayers. Three months later, little has changed for millions in Haiti, but the world has largely moved on. Earthquakes in Chile, Mexico, China, and a volcano in Iceland have all occurred in rapid succession. Haiti is old news.
The world is in trouble. Nature is under assault everywhere and many scientists agree that we are in a period of mass extinctions. Our atmosphere is heating up. Our global consumption patterns are unsustainable.  Pollution, poverty, economic volatility, war, terrorism, inner city violence – all of these are on the rise.   Will humans survive for more than another century? Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need for a new level of cooperation in the world, transcending all of our perceived differences.  I often reflect on Margaret Mead’s famous quote about what “a small group of thoughtful people” can do to effect positive change.

Individual intentions and actions do matter, even the seemingly mundane actions we do repeatedly. Brushing one’s teeth, as Thich Nhat Hanh has written, can be an act of worship.  Although the trip to Haiti was a sobering reminder of that for me, I pray that I do not waste a single opportunity to connect my deeds and intentions in healing my local community – whether that takes the form of involvement at my daughter’s school, listening to someone – stranger or friend, share their sadness or pain, spending a few extra bucks on my trip to the grocery store in order to place a can of soup into the food bank collection box, going the extra mile to help a friend, a parent, a patient, or even an earthworm struggling to cross the road in search of a patch of green grass.

Woman nursing in shanty town - Haiti

We, and our actions, are all connected. Happy Spring!

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Community Acupuncture | 1 Comment »

I Left My Heart in Haiti

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Haiti Journal – February 18 to Feb. 28, 2010

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck at 4:53 local time near Port au Prince, the capital city of Haiti. According to the Haitian government, approximately 230,000 people died in the quake, 300,000 were injured, and 1,000,000 people became homeless.
Soon after the quake, I made a decision to join the Tzu Chi International Medical Association (TIMA) on a relief effort to help survivors. I offer the following reflections from my journey in the hopes that other medical professionals will be inspired to take advantage of this opportunity to experience profound professional, as well as spiritual growth.  It is also my hope that everyone reading this – medical professional or not – gains a deeper appreciation of the simple requisites of a healthy existence: clean water, nutritious food, access to medical care, safe housing, intact infrastructure, and most of all – a sense of inner peace, and hope for the future, and does what they can to ensure that everyone in the world has these needs met.

Friday, Feb. 19. I arrived at the Tzu Chi camp in Port au Prince after a grueling 8 hour bus ride over bumpy roads and heavy traffic with many trucks moving relief goods in from the Dominican Republic. There is a distinct difference between the affluence of the D.R. and Haiti. As one gets closer to the disaster zone, one sees many camps of people living in shelters constructed of sticks, plastic sheeting, blankets, whatever can be found to protect one from the heat of the day, and the cold of night. With the rainy season approaching, and the hurricane season soon after that, it’s quite clear that with the millions of people living in these makeshift shelters, the public health situation will likely worsen, with an increase in respiratory illness, TB, gastrointestinal illness due to poor quality water and food, and consequent mental despair. One of the members of my team subsequently visited one of the few functioning hospitals in Port au Prince and was told that on average, five babies die every night in that one hospital.

It is hot and humid here with day time highs in the low 90s. I am drinking lots of water to stay hydrated. It feels like a perpetual sauna. So far, my body is adjusting though. We are quite fortunate to have 3 healthy vegetarian meals a day, air conditioned sleeping quarters, and access to cold showers. With fresh water trucked in every day at a cost of $600/day, I do my best to minimize water consumption. It would be easy to feel guilty – seeing so many people every day who lack these basics. But I quickly reason that a more productive thought is to accept that having a few comforts enables me to stay healthy and thereby have the energy every day to serve others. The work itself isn’t tiring, just the long hours in the heat. Each person who sits down in front of me represents an opportunity to connect with love and respect, to offer hope, and to help alleviate suffering. When the situation seems hopeless, I focus on the person in front of me and it isn’t so difficult to revive my hope, holding a long term goal of recovery for Haiti, realizing this will demand patience and persistence from me, and everyone involved.

In the month between deciding to volunteer, and actually arriving, many times I experienced doubt about the importance of my participation in the relief effort. Three times, my flight to Haiti was canceled adding to my doubts about whether the universe was signaling me that I was not needed. I often asked myself, “What can I, as an acupuncturist do, with a few boxes of needles, to improve the lives of Haitian people  in a lasting way?” Certainly, I can alleviate their pain and stress for a day, or even a week, but what then? What happens after the relief organizations inevitably close their free medical clinics due to the reality of resource limitations? The Haiti disaster is fading from the awareness of the general public. There are so many problems on the planet, and already, the earthquake in Chile is the hottest news story. This kind of thinking easily lends itself to despair.
Yes, it is sad to acknowledge these realities, but nonetheless, essential not to underestimate the value of a small act of kindness performed with love and intention. As the Buddha said, the barrel of goodness is filled one drop at a time.

Saturday, February 20. Today we visit a garment factory where about 200 workers have volunteered their time to help sew tarps for free distribution. The factory is still standing, though some of the roof framing is twisted from the earthquake. It is about 86 degrees inside according to the thermometer on wall – literally a sweatshop. But these are the lucky ones, the ones who still have employment and an income, however meager, to take home to their families. We offer the workers a simple meal of rice and dine together.

The Tzu Chi spirit is to respect and love every sentient being and that guides the manner in which relief operations are carried out. Video footage of some of the initial disaster response in Haiti showed food tossed out of helicopters, as if to wild dogs. This is very sad. The Tzu Chi way is to make eye contact, smile, bow and offer goods with outstretched arms and an understanding that the person we offer to is not to be pitied. We owe them a debt of gratitude because they give us the opportunity to open our hearts in love and this is what leads to internal peace as well as healing in the world. By serving others, we gain insight into deep truths. All of the happiness we enjoy is dependent upon the kindness of other beings. Contemplating this deeply dissolves the limited notions of self that we habitually cling to and enables us to merge with a spacious heart that has no limits. Meditation on Emptiness or selflessness, conjoined with dependent arising, is the gateway to realization of ultimate truth according to the ancient masters.

One of my team mates observes that many of the Haitians only take a few bites of rice and then stash the remainder in their shoulder bags. It is clear that food is still scarce here. Most people are visibly thin, and for every worker in the factory, there are probably many more mouths to feed elsewhere.

Whenever we drive anywhere outside our camp compound, the masses of people living on the streets is staggering. If their house wasn’t completely destroyed, the people are afraid to sleep inside due to the persistent aftershocks, so they use their homes to wash, and store their belongings, but do not linger inside. Throughout my day, I am constantly feeling tears well up inside.

Wed, Feb. 24. Aside from the professional and spiritual growth opportunities already mentioned, what I most appreciate about volunteering with the Tzu Chi organization is the focus on team work – appreciating and taking care of one another. Disaster work isn’t easy. In Haiti, the environment is very harsh. The heat and humidity, the dust and air pollution from trucks and generators, the noise – are seemingly ever present, assaulting the body’s physical senses. Mental stress is also a factor. The needs of the population are so great. So many people are suffering. There are only so many of us, and so few hours in each day.

It’s a fine line between helping effectively, and burning out due to secondary trauma exposure. I feel like crying about 50 times a day, but usually there is no time to allow those feelings visible expression. There are patients waiting to be served, and so one must carry on, understanding that one will need to make space for these feelings later, possibly after the team splits up and goes home. One therefore needs to be very mindful of one’s balance of mental and physical capacities as they fluctuate throughout the day.

The days are long and the inner and outer challenges are many. Every situation becomes a learning opportunity to think creatively – how to serve more people, more effectively, in less time, using less resources. And these challenges are shared by everyone on the team. Being human, sometimes these stresses lead to interpersonal conflicts – though fortunately, the spirit of teamwork at Tzu Chi usually prevents such problems from arising.  We constantly have the opportunity to go the edge of our personal limitations and then take one step back, giving us greater capacity and flexibility to negotiate future challenges.

Trauma Stewardship. During my time in Haiti, I read an excellent book, Trauma Stewardship, An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self while Caring for Others, by Seattle author and educator, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky. This should be required reading for everyone who works in the disaster response field, and beneficial for anyone in a service profession.

Friday, February 26. The first patients are hobbling into the clinic on crutches and sticks. About 30% of my patients complain of suffering from concrete debris falling on them during tay tremble (the earthquake, in Haitian Creole). I am without an assigned translator this morning, so I will have to rely upon instincts and patience this morning in order to give acupuncture treatments. I asked one of the company workers how to say “Where is your pain?” in Creole. “Keebow, oo gan doo ler”.

A Compassionate response to the Psychology of Human Need. An 18 year old woman has been triaged to receive acupuncture for a headache. Upon interviewing her through my translator, it turns out she also complains of stomach and back pain, and vaginal infection. It seems many of the women are complaining of vaginal infection and there is speculation that many of our patients say whatever they can in order to receive medicine – pills especially. This complicates the task of our doctors and nurses to responsibly dispense the appropriate medication.  Haitian people seem to have an almost religious faith in pills. A Haitian dentist who lost his office commented as such to me while receiving acupuncture. The acupuncture treatment seems to bring little positive effect to my patient and so I send her to another doctor for further examination. She does not have the usual signs of vaginal infection, only a mild temperature. So the doctor gives her some tylenol and tells her to come back the following day to see how she is feeling.

I am surprised to see her the following day, seeking another acupuncture treatment. Again, my treatment seems not to help, and she grimaces when I palpate her low back. So again, I refer her to the doctors for further examination. We don’t have an x-ray machine. Referral options are limited. Many of the other hospitals are so stretched to capacity that they turn away anything that doesn’t appear life threatening. It’s all educated guesswork, and one variable that needs to be factored in is the psychology of need.

Upon (gently) questioning one patient “why did you come here today?” She replied matter-of-factly to the Haitian translator in Creole – “it’s a free hospital, why wouldn’t I come here?” Tzu Chi not only provides medical care, but also distributes blankets, food, tents. The patients see the water truck rolling each day, see the well-fed healthy volunteers from first world countries. Even a small supply of pills can become a street commodity in a post-disaster economy. If you were in dire need, wouldn’t you seek every means you could to survive? Waiting for a Haitian government response when your family is starving and sleeping in the open is a potential (slow) death sentence.  There is no government here in a conventional sense. The international community is providing security, that’s about it, at least from a street vantage point.

So it seems completely understandable that people show up with vague medical complaints, difficult to confirm. It can be frustrating if we think we are there to only serve people with diagnosable conditions. Or, if we do not include dire poverty and hopelessness within the scope of illness that we are trying to treat.

Of course, you cannot cure poverty and hopelessness with a pill. One needs to begin by restoring hope, by smiling and respecting the individual, not faulting them for following their biological instinct to survive. At times, I tried to tell my patients that the acupuncture would help their headache, would lessen their depression. That natural healing would have fewer unpleasant side effects for their body. Even so, again and again, I would get the same request at the end of the treatments: “Please give me medicine”.

I confess that I practiced a little deception and often gave them a small package of 7 red pills – vitamin supplements. Through the translator, I said “this will help your condition.” I smiled and placed it in their hands and bowed, silently praying that it would indeed bring them all that they needed. They would usually smile in appreciation and say “merci”…thank you. I prayed that the placebo effect would work in their favor and that they would feel better. Lacking the knowledge or the staffing resources to accurately diagnose their condition, it seemed a more compassionate response than lecturing them and sending them away empty handed.

Most of the Haitians have lost family members, or is close to someone who has. PTSD-like shock exacts a silent, but deadly toll on the mental psyche of the culture. In such an environment, a sincere smile conveying love can be like sunshine in the eye of a hurricane.

Sunday, March 28. At the Immigration counter inside Miami Airport. “What were you doing in the Dominican Republic and Haiti”, the agent asks me?” “Medical relief”, I stammer sleepily. “What is your profession?” “Acupuncture”. He pauses, seemingly satisfied that I’m not a terrorist, and then asks me an unexpected question. “How is the situation down there?” My mind shifts into some sort of timeless realm beyond words. I search for the words to respond and then look him in the eye and speak from my heart: “It’s going to take a long time to heal.” He thanks me and indicates that I can go. As I walk down the corridor, the tears well up like a sudden earthquake splitting open the ground of my heart. But I cannot linger, time to find my luggage and pass the immigration counter and then find the transfer area. I will make time for these feelings I keep telling myself.

And I shouldn’t have any expectations as to how the feelings will arise. Maybe they will manifest as a flood of tears, or maybe just as a deep reflectiveness, like swimming beneath the surface of a warm tropical ocean. It doesn’t matter what the experience is. What matters is how I interpret it, the lessons I learn, and the vision I continually recreate in each moment of however much time remains in my life.

I do know this; ten days in Haiti has taught me to appreciate the simple things in life, like good health and the privilege of having access to health care when I need it. A happy intact family living in a society with a relatively intact infrastructure.  Clean air. An opportunity to gain a livelihood through meaningful work. Access to education should I wish to go back to school. Of course, I could complain about a thousand and one things – national and professional politics, the economy, the stranger who cuts me off on the freeway. But these sorts of petty concerns are trivial in contrast to life in a disaster zone.

My translator friends were enrolled in a University in Haiti that collapsed. Out of three hundred something students, only twenty made it out alive. One of the young men heard his friends, trapped in the rubble, calling his name. There is no talk of rebuilding the school, and seemingly no government to even do the talking. Haiti is the world’s injured child for now, this much seems clear. Let us all do what we can to tend the suffering.
This is our life, our planet, our world. What are we going to do with intention? How are we going to get there? Do we wait for the government to solve the problems? There is a saying; the people lead and the government follows. The people are, more often than not, the true leaders, the unheralded saints who never lose hope, who strive in their personal lives to uphold righteousness and goodness in their communities.

Gratitude: With gratitude to all those who contributed directly, and indirectly to supporting my journey. Gan En (Mandarin for “gratitude”.)

Note: I will be showing pictures and telling stories from my Haiti trip on Saturday evening, March 13 at 7:00 p.m. Location: Dharma Friendship Foundation,  2420 East Union St. in the Central district.  (I gave out the wrong address in my newsletter….look for the colorful prayer flags flying above the bus stop. ) There will be fresh baked treats and a short meditation on compassion after the presentation.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Community Acupuncture, Peace, Stories | 7 Comments »

« Older Entries