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After 2 years, a family circle is complete

A Houston couple adopting a Haitian orphan thought the wait was over. Then came the earthquake …

By JENNIFER LATSON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Feb. 4, 2010, 11:35PM

Johnny Hanson Chronicle

Holding her 6-week-old, Jude, Debra Parker hugs Ronel, 9, who arrived from Haiti on Thursday with his dad, Ernest Parker. New sister Carly, 12, and brother Colton, 10, were at the airport, too.

Debra Parker and three of her four children stood facing the baggage claim escalator at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. A semicircle of friends and family fanned out behind them. As step by rolling step flattened at the bottom, empty, the circle grew restless. Debra turned to look back at them.

“This is how I felt for two weeks,” she said.

Debra's husband, Ernest Parker, has spent the last two weeks sleeping on the waiting room floor of the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince, where he was picking up the family's long-awaited fourth child: 9-year-old Ronel. The Parkers have been trying to adopt the boy, an orphan who nearly starved to death, for two years.

Ronel was freed to immigrate to the U.S. after the recent earthquake, but a bureaucratic breakdown delayed his exit while Ernest haggled endlessly with Haitian and American officials.

Finally, just after 8 p.m. Thursday, Debra recognized their feet on the top stair. A cheer erupted from the crowd of more than three dozen, many holding signs reading “Welcome Ronel” in English and Creole.

Debra clutched her youngest son, 6-week-old Jude, in one arm, and hugged her newest son with the other. A cousin thrust a Teddy bear into Ronel's hands, wearing a T-shirt that said “Welcome to the family.”

The last few weeks were harrowing even for a child inured to hardship. Ronel weathered the earthquake and the ensuing chaos, then was given the news he'd been waiting years to hear: He could finally go to America, to the Parkers. But the plane came and went without him. Haitian officials said he was missing some paperwork.

As chaos gripped the country, Ernest went to get the boy himself. But just after he arrived in Haiti, a group of Americans was arrested for trying to bring 33 undocumented children across the border.

“Everything shut down,” said Ernest's mother, Sue Parker. “Even as of Tuesday night, they told us it would be indefinite. Then we really started to get scared.”

Ernest battled on, but each day brought new frustrations and miscommunications. He submitted four sets of fingerprints, and each set was lost. Immigration officials told him he and Ronel were cleared to leave, then rescinded their permission.

Finally, Ernest said, the head of the American Embassy grew tired of the constant calls and e-mails from the family's friends and supporters, including Congressman Ted Poe, and let them leave.

Adoption not yet complete

On Thursday, Ernest wore a scruffy beard and an exhausted smile. He said he hadn't slept since 6:30 Wednesday morning.

Ronel smiled dazedly, his arms crossed over his new Teddy bear.

His new sister, 12-year-old Carly Parker, flipped through a Creole phrase book.

“Can you read this?” she asked, pointing to the words for “Are you OK?”

Ten-year-old Colton Parker reached for the book.

“I need to find ‘I love you,' ” he said.

As frustrating as the past few weeks have been, Ernest said they gave him valuable time to bond with his son. Thursday was Ronel's first time meeting his new siblings.

“All the fighting's over,” Ernest said. “It's just time to love, to be a family.”

Ronel's adoption isn't complete yet: The terms of the American “humanitarian parole” policy allowed Haitian children already in the process of adoption to finish that process here. Because the policy is so new, the Parkers don't exactly know what hoops they will still have to jump through. But, they said, that can wait. On Thursday night, they just wanted to go home.

“I think we're going to go inside, lock the door, and become a family,” Debra said.

In the baggage claim area, Ronel stood largely speechless as he was introduced to his extended family. At one point, he drifted away from a conversation he couldn't understand, among people he had never met.

Ernest reached out, put a hand on Ronel's shoulder, and pulled him back in.

jennifer.latson@chron.com

Leprosenhaus an internationally recognized teaching hospital (The Hospital that Gary Wilson is recovering in)

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Chronicle Clinic Traunstein

The history of Traunstein hospitals dates back to medieval times. A leper or infirm was originally constructed in the suburb of the Holy Spirit and is documented evidence already 1431st We will limit ourselves in our little historical perspective, however, essentially on this hospital, which is located below the Guntramshügel.

1909
Decided in 1909 the town council of Traunstein, the definition of a basic program for the construction of a new municipal hospital. Already in July 1912 purchased the large plot at 5.73 Tagwerk Guntramshügel for 18,000 marks from the castle owner Eugene Rosner. The new building was built in the period from 18 April 1912 until the end of July 1914. The total cost amounted to 16,263.86 marks. The outbreak of World War I, however, prevented the assignment of civilian patients and only after the dissolution of the imprisoned, the new hospital in 1919 of his civilian provision could be fed.

Almost simultaneously with the construction of the new hospital, another representative building was completed in Traunstein, which should in future play an important role as a hospital and the First and Second World War, a similar fate as the hospital was given, namely the Prince Ludwig Home. The Society for merchant and recreational homes, Wiesbaden Traunstein had been selected for the first of its holiday resorts, and it was built on the outer Wasserburger Street on the site of today's school center. 25 years after the start of World War I broke out in 1939, the second global war and again, the hospital and Prince Louis were converted home in reserve hospitals. During the summer months of 1945, the American military government released the building for the civilian population, but only in the year 1947 some reorganization could take place the Traunsteiner hospitals.
The hospital at the Cuno Niggl Street (named after the founder of a hospital beneficium) housed the Department of Surgical and Gynecological and Obstetric Department.
As more departments a Department of Oto-Rhino-patient department and an X-ray diagnosis and radiotherapy were connected. The Prinz-Ludwig-Heim was the subject inside medicine.

1963
Even in the 50 years, a new construction and renovation of the hospital in the town of Traunstein conversation, but only in the City Council meeting of 5 was April 1963 after the starting gun was unanimous. On 15 August 1963 was opened between the Cuno Niggl Hospital and the railway line Traunstein-Trostberg a large construction site. It envisaged the creation of 420 beds, including the old hospital.
In early 1967 then saw the merger of the two houses. In 1967, began construction of the new tract function was finished in 1970 so far that the operating rooms, radiology department and the nursery of their future use could be supplied. The remaining modifications were made in 1970/71. The Prinz-Ludwig Heim had thus fulfilled his task. In February and March 1972 the building was demolished.

1984
But in 1984 the bulldozers rolled back to the hospital grounds, as on 8 October began the demolition of the old Cuno Niggl Hospital. It had to make way for a modern extension with a bed and a functional wing. Already on 29 March 1985 was topping out ceremony of the 1st Construction phase. In October 1988 the functional area could be put into operation. It contains the control room, the central warehouse, which Bettenzentrale, the operating suite, anesthesia, endoscopy, an ambulance with Liegendkrankenvorfahrt the radiology department, the urological outpatient clinic and the hangar for the rescue helicopter "Christoph 14". The new feature on the top wing has a unique feature, namely, a helicopter hangar with a heated rooftop landing pad and automatic entry and exit for the helicopter.
During the year 1989, the phase 2, was completed. In it are a bed and the house physical therapy and a dining room for employees, which is now used as a patient and visitor cafeteria.
For example, a hospital was the second level of care, with a total of 490 beds. Hence the establishment of a children's ward (paediatrics) was become possible, which started 1987 states work.

1991
From 1991 to 1994 was in a 3rd Phase, a new functional area for intensive therapy, nuclear medicine, cardiology and ECG created. In it there are also a new kitchen and just needs a new, larger archive. As part of this construction project and the entrance and reception area was redesigned. Under a cooperative agreement between the district hospital and the Traunsteiner Radiology group practice of Dr. Christoph Bartsch, Dr. Michael and Dr. Jürgen Viermetz to Nieden was in June 1995 at the hospital, a magnetic device (magnetic resonance imager) established.

In the spring of 1997, the Hospital Planning Committee of Bavaria agreed to the request of District Hospitals Traunstein-Trostberg set, a neurological station and the planned increase from 490 beds to 506 at.

2000
In 2000, a second linear accelerator was installed. With the now existing radiation therapy equipment in the department treated approximately 150 patients daily. In the same year, was established in cardiology, a second cardiac catheterization test site. The relocation of the dialysis department in the new and most modernly equipped rooms, expanded dialysis places in 1999 to 8 treatment places. With the establishment of the Children's Day-1994, the Day-Operative in 1998, the pain clinic and day clinic of the rays in 2001, they expanded the possibilities of ambulatory patient care.

With the completion of the construction phase 4/Ostflügel in 2002, are 69 beds in modern, bright and with the now expected standard. This construction is, among other things Opportunity to approach in other phases of the rehabilitation of bed houses from the 60s years. The aim of the reorganization is to create station sizes of about 28-29 beds, with a day by the patients expected room facilities.