ALTAMONTE SPRINGS—Ralph Gousse grew up in a town in southern Haiti, 60 miles from Port-au-Prince that supported a bauxite mine for Reynolds Aluminum. His dad was in charge of maintenance for the trucks routing daily from the mountains to the docks, while his mom worked in an administrative role.

 

Gousse and his three siblings enjoyed prosperous days when the town had a 10-bed hospital, free healthcare, and many other community amenities afforded by Reynolds’ presence.

 

When Reynolds Aluminum closed the operation in 1982, the economy suffered terribly. The mine was abandoned; trucks that brought ore from the mountains were left behind. The Haitian government inherited Reynolds property, transforming the Reynolds shed that once covered ore into a parking lot for Haitian customs to use for imported cars waiting for nationalization to be stored. The town hospital fell into disrepair.

 

“When I was growing up, there were about 400,000 people living in Port-au-Prince,” said Gousse, an oncologist with Florida Hematology & Oncology Specialists in Altamonte Springs. “By the time of the Jan. 12 earthquake, the population had grown to 3 million. The government couldn’t keep up with the pace, and not many people wanted to go inland. For the most part, our little village was abandoned.”

 

Determined to help his fellow Haitians, Gousse studied medicine at the same Port-au-Prince hospital now overflowing with earthquake victims. He moonlighted at the village hospital, where he learned to give injections.

 

“Since I was a little kid, I’ve been fascinated with microscopes,” he said. “An aunt (Amelie) was a doctor and another one was a lab technologist, so a career in medicine made sense.”

 

A year after the mine closed, Gousse emigrated to the United States.

 

“I originally only wanted to do hematology,” said Gousse. “When I went for an interview at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, the program was two years for board certification in hematology or oncology. The program director said, ‘if you go three years, you could be board-certified in both.’ I said, why not?”

 

Fast-forward to 2005, when Gousse returned to Haiti for his father’s funeral.

 

“There was no more electricity, no water in the hospital,” he recalled. “It had become a small, inadequate outpatient clinic. Houses had dirt floors and holes in the ceilings. The nearest hospital was 30 miles away. There was nowhere to go for care. So my brother, Ronald, and I returned to the town with a friend, Henri Jabon, to see what we could do.”

 

The result: Haiti Help Med Plus, formed “to actively participate in the sustainable socio-economic leverage of Haiti.” (See “Helping Haitians” article in this edition).

 

First step: getting the hospital back in shape. “We contacted Florida Hospital Waterman to see if they could help us out with beds, chairs, bedding, curtains, and other items, and they gave us everything! We had three truckloads of supplies,” said Gousse. “Then we completely renovated the hospital that is well-staffed now to help the people in the community.”

 

Gousse has led trips to Haiti every two months for the last four years. This summer, the revitalized hospital will expand to include additional operating room and clinic space when construction is finished.

 

“I’ve brought my kids with me every year to help, and they’ve enjoyed playing Santa, giving out toys to local kids,” said Gousse, whose wife, Ninotte, often joins the family on trips. Their daughter, Melissa, 22, recently graduated from the University of Miami and plans to study psychology or medicine. Their older son, Ranley, 18, is at Elon University in North Carolina, on his dream path to be an orthopedist, and their younger son, Ryan, 16, is a sophomore at Trinity Prep in Winter Park.

 

Gousse believes strongly in decentralization of Haiti and is working hard to develop business and better health care in the community.

 

 “If I can fix this little place,” said Gousse, “people would not want to go to Port-au-Prince and add to their misery. We have plans to build a vocational school, a fishing village and other tourist attractions that will create jobs and provide my Haitian brothers and sisters food and shelter. That’s my hope.”