June '16 Featured Interview |
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Interview with
Mary Ann LoFrumento, M.D.
Pediatrician, Author & Humanitarian
About Mary Ann:
Mary Ann is a nationally-renowned pediatrician, author and humanitarian. For decades she has cared for newborns and their moms and has advised parents on child care. Currently, she is Medical Director and Hospitalist of the Newborn Nursery at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey. As a sought-after parenting expert, she is the author and producer of the Simply Parenting series of childcare books and videos. Mary Ann is also vice president and board member of the BNN Foundation (a non-profit organization that supports and provides programs that promote compassionate and effective communication in healthcare). BNN Foundation trains physicians about how to deliver bad news to patients and their families. The Breaking Bad News model has been adapted and used for a variety of disciplines that require effective and compassionate communication.
When she is not taking care of children and their mothers in the U.S., Mary Ann is focused on a global humanitarian effort. She is cofounder and president of Hands Up for Haiti (see description below). Hands Up for Haiti has helped to transform medical care in northern Haiti.
Mary Ann is a nationally-renowned pediatrician, author and humanitarian. For decades she has cared for newborns and their moms and has advised parents on child care. Currently, she is Medical Director and Hospitalist of the Newborn Nursery at Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey. As a sought-after parenting expert, she is the author and producer of the Simply Parenting series of childcare books and videos. Mary Ann is also vice president and board member of the BNN Foundation (a non-profit organization that supports and provides programs that promote compassionate and effective communication in healthcare). BNN Foundation trains physicians about how to deliver bad news to patients and their families. The Breaking Bad News model has been adapted and used for a variety of disciplines that require effective and compassionate communication.
When she is not taking care of children and their mothers in the U.S., Mary Ann is focused on a global humanitarian effort. She is cofounder and president of Hands Up for Haiti (see description below). Hands Up for Haiti has helped to transform medical care in northern Haiti.
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Hands Up for Haiti (HUFH) was formed in 2010. It is a medical humanitarian organization committed to making a sustainable and positive impact on the health of the people of northern Haiti – men, women and children living in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The HUFH organization collaborates with and supports the Haitian medical community by delivering direct care and educational programs and by partnering with allied organizations. Their mission includes programming for which local doctors, nurses, community health workers and support personnel take ownership. HUFH teaches and delivers care and provides training for Haitian colleagues to become teachers, program leaders and coordinators. Earlier this year, HUFH was awarded the inaugural Henry Schein Cares Medal for medical health, an annual award given to one organization that demonstrates excellence in expanding access to medical care for the underserved. Henry Schein, Inc. is the world’s largest provider of health care products and services to office-based dental, animal health and medical practitioners. |
ABOVE: Dr. Mary Ann caring for Haitian girl
BELOW: Dr. Mary Ann with newborn 
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Myrna Beth Haskell, managing editor, talked with Dr. LoFrumento about her experiences in Haiti and the inspiration behind founding HUFH.
My first interview with Mary Ann was in regards to a children’s health feature I was writing for a parenting magazine. At the time, I learned about Simply Parenting, a highly respected child development book and DVD series that she created. She was a joy to work with, and I sought her expertise for future articles. When I heard about her humanitarian pursuits, I knew that sharing her journey would be perfect for SANCTUARY.
What was the inspiration behind founding Hands Up for Haiti?
A small group of physicians and nurses, including my friend and long-time colleague, Dr. Jill Ratner, went to Haiti soon after the devastating earthquake in 2010. When Jill decided to return in November 2010, she invited me along. We were working in the north of Haiti in and around the city of Cap Haitien; CAP had not experienced the earthquake directly, but had a major influx of people escaping Port au Prince. There was an acute need for medical care, especially for children.
What happened on that first trip shook me to the core and woke me up to the social injustice of severe poverty and its medical consequences. I consider that first trip my “personal earthquake.”
I had never done this type of global health work or even traveled to a country considered a part of the developing world. I had lived and worked comfortably in Morris County, NJ. To see first-hand the extreme poverty and suffering of the people in Haiti, especially the children, just devastated me. The medical clinic there was just a one room shack. You can see these images on TV, you can comfortably write a check, but as I stood in the midst of Shada (one of the worst slums in the extremely poor country of Haiti) and saw children suffering from malnutrition, with minimal clothes and shoes and playing in raw sewage and garbage, I just broke down.
After that trip, together with Dr. Jill and a few other pioneer volunteers, we started HUFH to help others bring their skills to a country with great need for medical care - especially for women and children. During our first trips, many of us heard the phrase, ‘You can leave Haiti, but Haiti will never leave you.’ We participated in those first missions and carried a piece of Haiti in our hearts when we returned home. Out of that inspiration, HUFH was born, and, even today, it is what continues to drive us and help us carry out our mission.
We were idealistic, had high expectations, and we knew nothing about starting a non-profit abroad or at home. In the past five years, we have listened to and learned from our Haitian colleagues and have been humbled by the harsh realities of “doing good.” We are still learning and the organization is not only growing, but it’s also evolving. Our focus is shifting from delivering care to delivering impact.
My first interview with Mary Ann was in regards to a children’s health feature I was writing for a parenting magazine. At the time, I learned about Simply Parenting, a highly respected child development book and DVD series that she created. She was a joy to work with, and I sought her expertise for future articles. When I heard about her humanitarian pursuits, I knew that sharing her journey would be perfect for SANCTUARY.
What was the inspiration behind founding Hands Up for Haiti?
A small group of physicians and nurses, including my friend and long-time colleague, Dr. Jill Ratner, went to Haiti soon after the devastating earthquake in 2010. When Jill decided to return in November 2010, she invited me along. We were working in the north of Haiti in and around the city of Cap Haitien; CAP had not experienced the earthquake directly, but had a major influx of people escaping Port au Prince. There was an acute need for medical care, especially for children.
What happened on that first trip shook me to the core and woke me up to the social injustice of severe poverty and its medical consequences. I consider that first trip my “personal earthquake.”
I had never done this type of global health work or even traveled to a country considered a part of the developing world. I had lived and worked comfortably in Morris County, NJ. To see first-hand the extreme poverty and suffering of the people in Haiti, especially the children, just devastated me. The medical clinic there was just a one room shack. You can see these images on TV, you can comfortably write a check, but as I stood in the midst of Shada (one of the worst slums in the extremely poor country of Haiti) and saw children suffering from malnutrition, with minimal clothes and shoes and playing in raw sewage and garbage, I just broke down.
After that trip, together with Dr. Jill and a few other pioneer volunteers, we started HUFH to help others bring their skills to a country with great need for medical care - especially for women and children. During our first trips, many of us heard the phrase, ‘You can leave Haiti, but Haiti will never leave you.’ We participated in those first missions and carried a piece of Haiti in our hearts when we returned home. Out of that inspiration, HUFH was born, and, even today, it is what continues to drive us and help us carry out our mission.
We were idealistic, had high expectations, and we knew nothing about starting a non-profit abroad or at home. In the past five years, we have listened to and learned from our Haitian colleagues and have been humbled by the harsh realities of “doing good.” We are still learning and the organization is not only growing, but it’s also evolving. Our focus is shifting from delivering care to delivering impact.
Could you tell me a little bit about the Medika Mamba program and the effects of malnutrition?
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Our malnutrition program is well-established now, and we have clinics in four locations. Malnutrition is a preventable and curable disease and affects one in five children in Haiti. Whether it is moderate or severe, this condition makes children more susceptible to infections and prevents normal growth and mental development. The effects of deforestation and flooding, effects of El Nino and political barriers with the Dominican Republic (a major source of food for Haiti) have seriously affected food supplies and food security in Haiti. Hunger is painful; malnutrition is deadly. HUFH is working with the global community to eradicate childhood malnutrition. We run active malnutrition and education programs at each of our four established sites. We follow our children weekly, providing them with daily supplements of a high calorie peanut-based supplement called Medika Mamba, supplied by our in-country partner, Meds & Food for Kids.
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Dr. Mary Ann caring for Haitian baby
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Our Medika Mamba program treats 300 severely malnourished children each year, but the need is clearly much greater. In 2016, we intend to help 600 children in need.
Every month we find a few children who are so severely malnourished that they require hospitalization –or they will die. HUFH provides the funds for their care in hospital and then the children are enrolled in the Medika Mamba program. One toddler was beyond our help when our team was there in January. He had kwashiorkor: his whole body swollen and his organs failing, indicating severe malnutrition. Unfortunately this little one died in the hospital.
She explains further:
The families are critical partners in these efforts. We educate families about appropriate nutrition and teach them how to prepare healthy food with clean water. This education spreads through the community, touching many more lives. Equally important is an effort to improve food security, increase the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables and to raise the nutritional status of whole families. This year we plan on starting a pilot program to build community gardens in one of our poorest rural communities. We are planning on partnering with a Haitian College of Agronomy to ensure that we are supporting the best fruits and vegetables in this area of Haiti.
Why northern Haiti? Does this location need the most help?
All of Haiti needs help, but this is where we “landed” and began building relationships of trust with the people you are working with, which is critical to an endeavor such as ours. We are part of the Cap Haitien Health Network that helps both Haitian and US/Canadian medical professionals coordinate care in the north region. We work with Haitian doctors and nurses, the public and private hospitals, and we try to increase our impact through partnerships. As a group, the Cap Haitien Health Network is the support for all of the medical care in the north.
For example, Partners in Health (PIH) is the largest medical humanitarian organization in Haiti, and it is a wonderful organization that has pioneered delivering medical care. But PIH does not work in the north of the country.
How has helping the children of Haiti changed your perspective on life? What about your perspective on medicine?
My work in Haiti has changed everything for me. This work is hard, draining, and sometimes the weight of running an organization like this can seem overwhelming, especially as we try to raise funds to do our work. The world has turned away from Haiti towards other more recent disasters. But the rewards are amazing. The Haitian people are wonderful and welcoming and so very appreciative of everything we do. I always feel so respected and appreciated as a physician in Haiti. People come to see the doctor in their best clothing and the children are dressed in their Sunday best.
When I visit the renovated clinic in the slum of Shada, the women are sitting patiently for hours to be able to receive medical help for their children. When we are not there, the Haitian staff continues the work. The area has been cleaned up around the clinic. The children are not playing in raw sewage. Life is still hard, but there is some hope.
I have watched the children “grow up.” They greet me with such affection. They look so much healthier than when we started. We have made the entire community healthier. We have provided safe deliveries and medical care for the pregnant women. We have trained traditional birth attendants how to resuscitate a newborn in trouble (preventing brain damage and disability).
The biggest change in me is that I do not take what we have at home for granted. It is hard to go back to practice in a hospital where everyone has what is needed for their care and a woman or baby dying is a rare event. In Haiti, I’m delivering babies on the floor, and here the moms are getting massages and VIP meals.
I also want to train the next generation of physicians and open their eyes at a younger age. So we run our global health trips, and I teach these lessons at home through lectures at hospitals and schools. I try to get people to care about things beyond our own comfortable world.
A beautiful image…
This past January, I watched a group of young kids flying a kite made out of plastic garbage that they retrieved from the ocean. They were so filled with joy and so proud of launching their kite. There was no reason this hand-made kite should be soaring above their heads, but it was. I then understood what we have done: Hope of a better healthier Haiti through strengthening the Haitian medical community is our “kite”. It is sustained by the hard work and positive energy of our volunteers and our string ties with the Haitians we work with. This is their country. In the end they have to solve the problems.
Every month we find a few children who are so severely malnourished that they require hospitalization –or they will die. HUFH provides the funds for their care in hospital and then the children are enrolled in the Medika Mamba program. One toddler was beyond our help when our team was there in January. He had kwashiorkor: his whole body swollen and his organs failing, indicating severe malnutrition. Unfortunately this little one died in the hospital.
She explains further:
The families are critical partners in these efforts. We educate families about appropriate nutrition and teach them how to prepare healthy food with clean water. This education spreads through the community, touching many more lives. Equally important is an effort to improve food security, increase the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables and to raise the nutritional status of whole families. This year we plan on starting a pilot program to build community gardens in one of our poorest rural communities. We are planning on partnering with a Haitian College of Agronomy to ensure that we are supporting the best fruits and vegetables in this area of Haiti.
Why northern Haiti? Does this location need the most help?
All of Haiti needs help, but this is where we “landed” and began building relationships of trust with the people you are working with, which is critical to an endeavor such as ours. We are part of the Cap Haitien Health Network that helps both Haitian and US/Canadian medical professionals coordinate care in the north region. We work with Haitian doctors and nurses, the public and private hospitals, and we try to increase our impact through partnerships. As a group, the Cap Haitien Health Network is the support for all of the medical care in the north.
For example, Partners in Health (PIH) is the largest medical humanitarian organization in Haiti, and it is a wonderful organization that has pioneered delivering medical care. But PIH does not work in the north of the country.
How has helping the children of Haiti changed your perspective on life? What about your perspective on medicine?
My work in Haiti has changed everything for me. This work is hard, draining, and sometimes the weight of running an organization like this can seem overwhelming, especially as we try to raise funds to do our work. The world has turned away from Haiti towards other more recent disasters. But the rewards are amazing. The Haitian people are wonderful and welcoming and so very appreciative of everything we do. I always feel so respected and appreciated as a physician in Haiti. People come to see the doctor in their best clothing and the children are dressed in their Sunday best.
When I visit the renovated clinic in the slum of Shada, the women are sitting patiently for hours to be able to receive medical help for their children. When we are not there, the Haitian staff continues the work. The area has been cleaned up around the clinic. The children are not playing in raw sewage. Life is still hard, but there is some hope.
I have watched the children “grow up.” They greet me with such affection. They look so much healthier than when we started. We have made the entire community healthier. We have provided safe deliveries and medical care for the pregnant women. We have trained traditional birth attendants how to resuscitate a newborn in trouble (preventing brain damage and disability).
The biggest change in me is that I do not take what we have at home for granted. It is hard to go back to practice in a hospital where everyone has what is needed for their care and a woman or baby dying is a rare event. In Haiti, I’m delivering babies on the floor, and here the moms are getting massages and VIP meals.
I also want to train the next generation of physicians and open their eyes at a younger age. So we run our global health trips, and I teach these lessons at home through lectures at hospitals and schools. I try to get people to care about things beyond our own comfortable world.
A beautiful image…
This past January, I watched a group of young kids flying a kite made out of plastic garbage that they retrieved from the ocean. They were so filled with joy and so proud of launching their kite. There was no reason this hand-made kite should be soaring above their heads, but it was. I then understood what we have done: Hope of a better healthier Haiti through strengthening the Haitian medical community is our “kite”. It is sustained by the hard work and positive energy of our volunteers and our string ties with the Haitians we work with. This is their country. In the end they have to solve the problems.
What is your most memorable moment while helping the people of Haiti?
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On one of my trips, a young mother brought her very ill baby to the clinic. We rushed the child to the hospital but the baby died a few days later. It may have been overwhelming infection or a cardiac disorder. I did not know that the baby had died as I had left soon after and had lost touch. Then, on a return trip six-months later, she found me and thanked me. I was so sad that the baby had died, but she still wanted to thank me for trying to help. This past year, she came back again when she heard that I was there. She had a healthy little girl on her lap for me to see. This time she had help throughout her pregnancy from the clinic and the baby was seen right from birth. The tears were flowing for me as I hugged that little child. This is what it is about: helping people one at a time. A drop in the bucket, maybe, but I think of it more as ripples in a pond. You do one thing and it has ripple effects.
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Dr. Mary Ann with young mother
of healthy, little girl |
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How do the children respond to foreign doctors?
They affectionately call us “blans.” This is a term for foreigners in Haiti, not a reference to your skin color. They jump up and down and surround us everywhere we go. They love to have their photo taken. They do funny things to pose for us. They love to dance and sing. They are so cooperative during the visits to the clinic. They never misbehave, and they take medicine without a fight. Only half of them get to go to school, so we always try and teach them about their bodies and how to stay healthy. |
Dr. Mary Ann with Haitian children
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Do you keep in touch with Haitian community members in between your visits?
This is what makes us different from a lot of organizations. We do not believe in “hit and run” medical missions. Those are the groups that swoop in, do surgery on a lot of people, take a lot of feel good photos and then leave without helping to train or educate the Haitian doctors. All of our missions have to have an educational component. Our in-country director is a physician, and we employ about 25 Haitian doctors, nurses, pharmacists and lab techs. They work in our clinics when we are not present. We also have strong relationships with the Ministry of Health Haiti (MSSP), the Haitian medical community at large, and with the public and private hospitals where we do a lot of teaching - especially for sub-specialty work like ophthalmology, OB/GYN, neonatology, cardiology and endocrinology.
Our pediatric teams can see 600 patients in a week, but if we support a sustaining medical clinic, staffed by Haitian doctors and nurses, the children will receive medical care throughout the year. If we provide a child with Medika Mamba, it will cure her severe malnutrition, but if we teach her mother about how to better feed her family, she will have better nutrition forever. We are not there for us, we are there for them. It is to create sustainable support for the Haitians - in a sense, to put ourselves out of business someday.
Some Final Thoughts from Dr. LoFrumento:
I am very proud of our organization and all of the hard working volunteers who are so dedicated to our mission. Many people have walked away from supporting Haiti. Concerns about the money donated after the earthquake, political uncertainty, etc. People don’t see immediate changes and improvements. There are problems for sure in this country, but the Haitian people want to make things better and want a better life for themselves and their families.
There is a saying in this work that you should not cut the ribbon on a well after it is built and the water first flows. You should cut the ribbon in ten years after you have made sure the water is running and the well is working properly. That is what we are doing: putting the parts in place to make sure our work is continued long after we have left.
My greatest accomplishment is caring for children…whether here in New Jersey or in Haiti. Moms are the same everywhere - no matter what part of the world they live in – in their love and compassion for their children. It has always been a joy to help them.
This is what makes us different from a lot of organizations. We do not believe in “hit and run” medical missions. Those are the groups that swoop in, do surgery on a lot of people, take a lot of feel good photos and then leave without helping to train or educate the Haitian doctors. All of our missions have to have an educational component. Our in-country director is a physician, and we employ about 25 Haitian doctors, nurses, pharmacists and lab techs. They work in our clinics when we are not present. We also have strong relationships with the Ministry of Health Haiti (MSSP), the Haitian medical community at large, and with the public and private hospitals where we do a lot of teaching - especially for sub-specialty work like ophthalmology, OB/GYN, neonatology, cardiology and endocrinology.
Our pediatric teams can see 600 patients in a week, but if we support a sustaining medical clinic, staffed by Haitian doctors and nurses, the children will receive medical care throughout the year. If we provide a child with Medika Mamba, it will cure her severe malnutrition, but if we teach her mother about how to better feed her family, she will have better nutrition forever. We are not there for us, we are there for them. It is to create sustainable support for the Haitians - in a sense, to put ourselves out of business someday.
Some Final Thoughts from Dr. LoFrumento:
I am very proud of our organization and all of the hard working volunteers who are so dedicated to our mission. Many people have walked away from supporting Haiti. Concerns about the money donated after the earthquake, political uncertainty, etc. People don’t see immediate changes and improvements. There are problems for sure in this country, but the Haitian people want to make things better and want a better life for themselves and their families.
There is a saying in this work that you should not cut the ribbon on a well after it is built and the water first flows. You should cut the ribbon in ten years after you have made sure the water is running and the well is working properly. That is what we are doing: putting the parts in place to make sure our work is continued long after we have left.
My greatest accomplishment is caring for children…whether here in New Jersey or in Haiti. Moms are the same everywhere - no matter what part of the world they live in – in their love and compassion for their children. It has always been a joy to help them.
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For more information about Dr. LoFrumento's organizations, books and foundations, see website links below.
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