As founders of Hearts Afire we unanimously decided based on the prompting of God that we must send in a team.  Being the surgeon and one of the founders, I was the obvious choice.  I never had a desire to go to Haiti; never felt called to Haiti; but realized that God “calls” people, and God “send”s people on different assignments. I was being SENT on this one.  Our Dominican missionary friends sent me an email asking when I was coming, and since we had a team leaving in February, I said, “We have a team coming in Feb.”  She emailed me back…”We need surgeons, anesthesiologists, and orthopedic surgeons NOW”.   She made it clear that the conditions were getting worse in Haiti and it was a disaster of unimaginable proportions. After speaking with my wife, the decision was made and now the work had to begin.  I had remembered reading in the book “Jesus, MD” that the author stated “a call is often nothing more than seeing a need and recognizing that you have the ability to meet that need.”

Now the phone calls started…the CEO of Blake Hospital…”I need medicine, amputation saws, suture, and orthopedic materials”  The response was “Take what you need.” Next was the office.  I had surgical cases and office scheduled so I needed to reschedule everything.  The office staff would take care of it.  Call coverage…”not a problem” was the response of my colleague.  Then the flights.  American had a flight leaving the next afternoon.  I was going to be on it.  God will make a way when there seems to be no way.

1/18/10

After a long day of travel we arrived in Santo Domingo at about 11:30 PM.  By the time we arrived at the Corazon del Siervo guest house at 1 AM.

1/19/10

When the rooster crowed at 5:21 AM the first thought to enter my mind was…”No wonder they eat so much chicken!”  We would be getting up around this time to leave for Haiti, but the van is broken, so we have to wait until the rental agency opens to get a rental van.  Now we start the day with prayer.  Planning for the day… how to enter at the border (by land or air) and where to work because the need is so great. 12:45 the van is packed and we are leaving Santo Domingo.  God is with us, and the plan is to enter at Jimani, have World Vision help us across the border, then meet up with Ernest and spend the night on the Haitian side. 13:30  Dave Sugar received a text message from his mother…”the situation in Petit Goave is desperate, no food, no water, no help.” So now we know that we HAVE to go there!  I ask, “Lord, what should we expect?”  The Lord says, “Expect to be my hands, feet, and heart.  I am there already.”  18:30 Met with World Vision in Jimani.  With their hats on we will pass through the border.  Then on to Port au Prince tonight.

1/20/10

Happy Birthday Rhonda. (my wife’s birthday today).  We arrived last night in Port au Prince.  Just crossing the border into Haiti felt like crossing into a war zone.  The closer we get  to PaP the more people there are.  In PaP there was rubble all over.  You could see that some had already been started to be cleaned up so the streets would be passable.  Concrete walls, portions of buildings down, and one building almost collapsed into the street.  And occasionally empty lots were full of people just sleeping on the ground.  And we will see in the daylight just how bad it really is.   We met up with Ernesto (a Christian Internist from Santo Domingo) in front of the UN and he had us follow him to Quisqueya (a Christian school untouched by the earthquake and now a command center for medical teams).

The Quisqueya Chrisstian School is in Port au Prince.  They are a Christian School that educates a lot of missionary kids, and their buildings are essentially untouched by the quake.  It is a gated compound and they have stopped school except for the seniors.  God has laid it on their hearts to be a central command for medical personnel.  The U.S. Army has opened a post in one of their buildings for now.  They will identify needs in the area and offer deployment travel to medical and surgical teams.  The teams are provided a place to sleep (anywhere on the grounds you can find), water, food, and Vonage phones as well as wireless internet for communication back home.  What a blessing.  Last night we slept on the floor in Mrs. Debrasee’s preschool classroom and the floors were rock hard.  They fed us when we arrived last night (hot dogs and rice) and while were eating I saw a rat the size of a football crawling around. This didn’t give me a thrill thinking about sleeping on ground level.  But all for God.

During the night on the hard floor at Quisqueya I had a vision of many small lights in the room.  I know it was angels because I had seen this many years age.  The first time I had seen them years ago they were “floating in the room” and slow moving.  But in this vision they were not uniform and almost blurred.  I asked the Lord what was it, and He said they appeared that way because they were “working so fast”.

Later as I was thinking about the vision and I felt it wasn’t complete; I wanted more information so I tried to reproduce it.  Then the Lord told me “It was not you (meaning I didn’t form it), it was for you”.  As I tried to go back to sleep I then saw another vision of what appeared to be small black flecks of floating debris in the air.  Almost as if tiny pieces of charcoal or the muck from the bottom of an undisturbed pond would be stirred up and “floating” in water.  I was fearful at first, thinking this was fallen angels coming to disturb me, when the Lord said to look more closely.  When I did I could see that it was, in fact, debris.  He said,  “This is just the dead remnants of the spiritual warfare after the demons have been destroyed”.

After a little more rest, we will head to Petit Goave.

8:30 AM (Still 1/20/10)

We left PaP about one hour ago and as we go along the coastal road, the devastation is worse and the clean up is less.  Even the road has cracks in it.  In some places the road has dropped as much as two or three feet with cracks all along the side.  As bad as it is, some people still seem to be in good spirits.

9:30-10AM

We finally arrive in Petit Goave.  It was not quite as bad as expected, but still not good, and I wonder if we are just getting used to seeing all the destruction.  There is some food at the makeshift market, but no stores are open yet.  No gas stations will open either, for fear of theft.

The rest of the day on 1/20/10

We visited the outdoor clinic with the Wesleyan doctors from Michigan and Indiana right next door to Ed’s house (the American missionary to Haiti).  They were holding a general medical clinic, but there was a lot they couldn’t handle.  Mainly orthopedic injuries a week old since the earthquake.  Some lacerations look like they were sewn up by a layperson in the kitchen the day after the quake.  Many of the injuries were pediatric so we had the perfect team.  The anesthesiologists (Tom and Trey) would sedate them so Dave could reset them and splint or cast them.  Some would probably eventually need amputations if their wounds aren’t cared for.  But there was a great ongoing collaborative effort.

We visited the hospital to see if we could use the operating rooms.  We met with the hospital administrator and the hospital was completely empty.  It consisted of four or five buildings, two of which were completely collapsed and unusable.  The administrator told us that he didn’t know if the building was safe to use (there was an appropriate fear of the people to enter any building).  In order to use the hospital he said we must first meet with the leader of the Sri Lankan national guard which was part of the local jurisdiction. Something happened at that meeting that determined the course of where we would work and how God would use us.

Mano was Ed’s “right hand man” and he was a local Haitian who had grown up in Petit Goave.  He served as our ride and our translator.  When we met with the Sri Lankan leader, it wasn’t clear if anything would really get done, so we momentarily contemplated going back to PaP where we knew our skills would be used.  Then I looked in Mano’s eyes and saw hope leaving and despair coming upon him.  When he said, “If you don’t stay nothing will happen and nobody will get help”, I realized that God had given us the opportunity to meet the need of people whom otherwise would not have a need met.  It was that moment that we knew we needed to stay.  And at that moment things started to happen.

One of the Swiss first response people came with us to that meeting where it was determined that when the Swiss structural engineer arrived later that day, we would have him make that determination.  I walked through the hospital with him, and his feeling was that only one area of the hospital was safe to use.  He didn’t know it, but that was the area we needed; the operating rooms.

Now the Swiss arranged for the Polish EMTs to put up the tents for triage and recovery.  Then Doctors Without Borders donated some anesthetics and we were ready to start.  So the collaborative effort of countries, teams, and faiths looked like this:

Sri Lankan National Guard provided the okay to use the tents

Swiss provided structural engineer opinion and triage help

Polish EMTs provided triage help

Doctors Without Borders (a secular organization) provided medicine

Cuban physicians helped with triage and recovery

And our team provided the Surgeons and Anesthesiologists

And we slept on the property of the Mormon church

Every day and all day long there were aftershocks.  None were as severe as the 6.0 we experienced in PaP, but there was one that was a 5.3 while we were finishing up an operation.  Many of the patients were afraid to even enter the operating room, either out of fear of earthquakes, or because of the amputation stories they heard from PaP.

Some of the important highlights I would like to make at this point are that we realized we were filling a great need when as soon as we arrived there was a 15 month old with a hip fracture requiring a SPICA cast.  This type of cast is best applied by an orthopedic surgeon, one of whom we had with us.  Mano was a joy and inspiring to us.  His attitude despite everything was an attitude of gratitude.  One of my emails out to the prayer team while we were on our way in was for multiplication of food, help, medicine, etc. and when we arrived we noticed that God was in fact providing everything.  Even the missionary, Ed, said, “What a difference a day makes”.  We could probably rephrase that as “What a difference God can make”.  Also, on the van ride in God told me to “weep for the children” and while I was weeping I saw a child who had lost his entire family and needed to know that God loved him.  One of the first children we treated was a seven year old who had lost his entire family!

1/21/10

This morning we took a ride through Petit Goave and we saw the real devastation.  Some streets had nearly every home crumbled as if it was just a pile of rocks.  Many people were sticking out their hands for food.  Then we went to the hospital and did some work.  Mostly, we did debridements.  Up to this point we only had to do one below knee amputation.

2:30 in the afternoon

The polish EMT’s are in one tent that is set out on the hospital parking lot. There are Cuban Doctors in another tent.  Both sides are triaging, but in the one tent with the Cuban Doctors, the recovery area is set up.  Also, there is triage through Doctors Without Borders.  MSF (Medicine Sans Frontiers).   Marta, a Cuban Anesthetist, who came to Haiti in January 2008, runs the operating room here.  She is the one that keeps making things happen.  And she is helping in amazing ways.  It seems in these developing Nations that there is always one woman who is a nurse or anesthetist who seems to keep things running.

1/22/10

I did forget to mention that yesterday while we were driving around town we saw an amazing site.  There was a building that was completely gone; except there was a woman sitting in her chair with her baby and the crumbled house was around them.  As it turned out, it was the child that had the SPICA cast applied the day before.  The family was very happy that we took the opportunity to take a photo of them.  Also today, we touched base with Dr. Malarino; she apparently is bringing a team to Port a Prince General Hospital.  Then on Saturday January 23, there is a plastic surgeon, orthopedist, and anesthesiologist that will be coming to Petit Goave.  We are going to see the school that Ed Lockett runs and then we will be heading back to the Dominican Republic.

Later that day…

It is almost strange being back in the Dominican Republic and seeing the building intact.  It seems like such an advanced country after being in Haiti.  It’s clear that the work in Haiti is just beginning, but by God’s grace we will continue to come and help and expect great things from this experience.

Since our last trip we have been organizing for our next trip which will leave this saturday March 13th. There are 13 people on this trip and they are so excited.  I was present as our new Hearts Afire team leader was organizing his team at the last team meeting.  This is the first time that Hearts Afire has sent any other team leader other than the founders to head a team.  We are extremely proud of James Lohmann who has proven to truly be a strong leader in all ways.  He has participated in 15 missions with Hearts Afire and has organized all our medications and supplies since 2006.  He has been our  volunteer inventory coordinator and believe me he has volunteered many 100′s if not 1000 hours plus in all his efforts.  We are very excited because he will continue to support Hearts Afire efforts in Petit Goave.  They will again be working initially on the Wesleyan compoud and then move to our new location at a new clinic opening just in time for us.  Our team will fly right into Port-au-Prince and then drive to Petit Goave. 

We are thankful to Harvest Tabernacle ministries who is helping host a special program at Riverview High School this Sunday march 14th at 3pm-6pm.  This fundraiser is Hope for Haiti where they will be raising money for 3 wonderful organizations working in Haiti one of which is ours.  They are hosting a great afternoon of Jazz and the Arts. 

Hearts Afire has also hired our new employee Lynnette Haskins who will be our new project coordinator.  We are thankful to God for growing us big enough that we can get some more help for Barb and the office.  We look forward to what God has in store for us.

Dr. V  (aka Vilma Vega MD)

We left at 2 pm from Ft. Lauderdale.  Upon original arrival to airport, we were greeted by four Haitian baggage handlers who not only met us with a smile, they didn’t want to take tips for handling our bags of medical supplies.  As we arrived to the counter at Jet Blue, we met a very friendly Haitian worker who broke out crying about her country and immediately thanked us for providing medical support.  She directly went to the supervisor who then called headquarters and allowed all our 34 pieces of luggage 50lbs each on board.  Already God’s favor on our trip was being displayed.  We arrived in Santo Domingo and stayed with our Dominican missionaries(Corazon Del Siervo)overnight. 

Feb. 7 – We left for Haiti in a rented van and driver at 4 am.  We arrived in Port-au-Prince at 12pm and went directly to the Quisqueya Christian School compound where we checked with logistics to confirm that we were still needed at the Petit Goave Wesleyan compound.  When we got the confirmation we left for Petit Goave.  During this time we also met our Haitian Pastoral guide who drove us through the city of PAP.  What I had only seen on CNN and fox news was coming to life.  Yes these buildings were all completely flattened, yes the smell of decomposing bodies still was heavy in areas where you know 100’s were still crushed below large buildings and markets, yes large tent cities were scattered throughout the city, and yes it is still clear in my mind the look of the Presidential Palace crumbled yet the spirit of these people was still resilient.  Life and business must go on.  So despite all the dust and disaster around them, the Haitians were still in the hustle and bustle of life. Some of them were going to work, others were helping each other in their tents, others cooking, and the street markets were open and people were selling products of any choice on the streets.  It was surreal that with all this death and despair people were selling Coke and Pringles on the street,but life must go on.  We stepped foot into a local supermarket before going on to Petit Goave.  We bought snacks and water for the team.  It was amazing. It looked like any supermarket in the US.  We exchanged money in the supermarket and moved on.  Gas stations were open but you needed to have Haitian dollars and goudes, otherwise the exchange rate was terrible.  As we started up towards Petit Goave with our goods in hand we saw some of the worst sites including horrible roads, more craters and cracks in the road created by the earthquake.  People living not only in tents but some only with sheets over wooden sticks to cover them.  Dust beyond measure and I thought Uganda was bad. We started looking at everything from a logistics point of view and first stopped at a Venezuelan/Cuban camp where over 100 tents had been donated by private U.S. donors.  They had been set up as a medical and feeding camp.  As we continued on we went through Grand Goave and about 80% of the houses were crumbled.  Again small missionary camps were present but few.  From their we arrived in Petit Goave and again what stood out was the fact that 80% of buildings were crumbled and what was left was questionable as to whether it was structurally stable.  We arrived first at the Notre Dame hospital and encountered 4 organizations working together including ourselves, the Cuban physicians, the Cuban rehabilitation organization and the German Ampour organization.  We quickly evaluated the grounds and went into the OR and set up at the hospital where the surgical team bought the fuel to run the generator to operate.  The surgical team started to set up camp and Dr. Pastorizo and myself went to interview the various organizations.   We also saw that the only government medical workers on the ground were the workers involved with the HIV program.  Otherwise their was no presence of Haitian medical workers or director. Fortunately we spoke Spanish, English and even a little French which got us around.  We then went back to the Wesleyan camp where we found ourselves using our Spanish more than we expected.  The Military from Spain had planted their camp at the Wesleyans and along with them, various teams from Canada and the US representing the Wesleyan group, the US Navy and Marines and Hearts Afire started to work together.  Prior to our arrival to Petit Goave, Mildred and I and Fernando (our IT man) felt we were going to continue onto Jacmel to check out further logistics for future teams but God drew us closer to the Wesleyan camp.  We realized that there were some initial difficulties at the Wesleyan camp because of language and cultural differences between the folks from the US and Canada and the Spaniards.  Because of our Latin background we fit the unique mold that these teams needed to work more efficiently together.   We helped to organize the grounds and set up teams of both the Spaniards and the Wesleyans.  We initially worked from 8:30am to 5pm but then the emergency evening shift began very soon there afterwards and left us very little time to rest. 

We therefore decided to work in shifts with the morning shift between the US military and the Spanish military and Hearts Afire.  The evening shifts were the Wesleyan group and on some days part of the Hearts Afire team especially when emergency C-sections needed to get done or vaginal deliveries.  There were also some special pediatric care to be given to the newborns.

February 8-11 – Everyday we started our mornings with devotions and our working days from 8:30am to 3pm. Final statistics for our trip were almost 3000 patients evaluated between our 4 teams, 75 surgeries, 26 deliveries and 1 pair of twins.

I still remember the 1 month old that was brought in from another camp, with a sunken fontanel (top of head) who looked like a prune.  As his eyes rolled back and his body was floppy, his heart raced and he looked septic.  His fever was 103 and he was extremely dehydrated.  As soon as Jim Lohmann started a small 24 gauge IV (which was a miracle in and of itself) in this dehydrated baby we started seeing some response from baby X.  Within 24 hours the baby looked normal and went from a prune to a plum.  Wow what a difference a day makes.  One more hour the day before and he would have been a goner but instead God’s grace showed His miracle to us and the baby’s family.  The baby had developed diarrhea and fever and had also fallen during the earthquake and he became easily dehydrated.  Just like this story there were many stories of medical care arriving just at the nick of time.

Then there is the emergency C-section at 1am, which our general surgeon had to perform.  Not to mention that all the women seemed to be in labor between the hours of 10pm to 7am.  26 babies in total were delivered several of which needed episiotomies.  Moms delivering on wooden boards and babies bundled and placed in little beds made from cardboard boxes.  Then the Marines had constructed a little wooden house used for post-op cases.  2 single beds were filled with other women who delivered or had been operated upon. 

The case that still haunts me is the 29 y/o man who walked 7 hours to see us because we were the only ones doing surgery in a radius of 40 miles in all directions.  This man had been having pain for several days before this but it had become so bad that he proceeded to find us. He had heard about our small referral clinic.  Word of mouth travels fast.   Our surgeons immediately evaluated him and took him to the OR.  Upon opening him up they found a ruptured appendix with significant pus in the abdominal cavity.  We had brought IV antibiotics, in particular the “gorillacillin” of them all Tygacil.  But even despite IV’s, antibiotics and surgery, this young man progressively worsened and died four days later.  Just like this, their was another woman who showed up at the Wesleyan compound in labor but unfortunately had been having cramping for days.  She unfortunately delivered a full term infant that had probably died perhaps a day before.  I cannot describe the emotions that these physicians and the patients went through during this time.  We have been taught to do no harm, to heal, and to do the best for our patients.  We are taught to try and be perfect, yet noone teaches us to deal with the emotions that overflow when situations like this occur.  Without any working hospital, with very little medical care available except us as a referral center and small daytime clinics set up by small relief organizations locally, their was nothing.  We realized that this must be how it is even when there is no earthquake.  What we saw were things of everyday life.  How many children die in childbirth not to mention the women.  How about those emergency appendicitis’ or the accident cases.  They don’t even stand a chance even when there was no earthquake.  The earthquake has brought to the surface and the recognition of millions what has always been the case in Haiti.  These are people of resilience who have relied on barely anything and certainly limited to no medical support. Is this what the world has let pass silently. However the world will never let Haiti stand-alone any longer.  All of us have become mobilized under one cause to love humanity and relieve human suffering to the best of our ability using our medical knowledge and the love of Christ.  These are the images that haunt me – the burnt child, the woman who refused to undergo an amputation which was so necessary in order to save her life, the young girl who had become catatonic after the earthquake, the father who stayed up with his infant as we rehydrated him through the night hoping and praying that they would have one more day together.

Every day I would try and go towards Jacmel but everyday the Wesleyan compound kept a hold on me.  I know that I was needed there not only to take care of patients but also to help relations between the Spaniards and the Americans so that we could all work together for one cause and  to be in God’s will.  My biggest lesson learned was that any expectations or desires that I may have had initially had to give way to God’s will.  When I let God completely take the wheel, so to speak, the entire mission was successful.  When one is thinking on their feet at such rapid speed, especially in disaster relief mode, it sometimes is hard to hear the distinct voice of the Lord.  That is why I learned to wait even when having to make critical rapid decisions.  Pride has no place in disaster relief and neither does poor judgment because both of these lead to poor results.  I must say that I was very proud of this exceptional medical team that laid it all down on the line for the unity of the team, the patients and especially for the Lord.  We worked succinctly, efficiently, and with lots of Love.

February 12 – as we said one last goodbye to the Wesleyan compound that morning, there was sadness on our faces.  We had made so many new friends, and had grown to deeply love the Haitian people who through all circumstances had yet become more resilient.  We didn’t know when we would be back but we knew we would.  Again another long drive back to the Dominican Republic.  But on our way out we saw every few feet hundreds of people dressed in white with Bibles in their hands singing songs of praise and worship thanking the Lord for the new life that is promised to them.  The government of Haiti had assigned Feb. 12 as the 1-month anniversary from the earthquake and announced a day of prayer and fasting in the nation.  Therefore we saw all the way from Petit Goave to Port-au-Prince the Glory of the Lord shown on the faces of these beautiful Haitian people who no longer had faces of mourning but of rejoicing in the greatness of the Lord.  We arrived back in the US on February 13^th.

February 19th – Dr. Maria Mallarino is planning her team for March 4th.  Medications and supplies are ordered to assist their team to complete their mission in Port-au-Prince.

February 22 – Dr. David Sugar and James Lohmann plan Hearts Afire team to Petit Goave for March 13-20.  Everyone at the Wesleyan complex is excited especially the Spanish military who can’t wait to get more bilingual help. 

We are thankful to all the donors of medical supplies and medications especially various local organizations and especially our local hospitals including Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Blake Hospital, and Manatee Memorial Hospital.   We are again thankful for all those who have given to Hearts Afire with everything from financial support, to time, to prayer and our volunteers who have worked tirelessly to help us get these teams deployed. Most especially we give thanks to the Lord who continues to shine His favor and blessings upon us.

Vilma Vega MD, Co-founder/President Hearts Afire

Vilma Vega MD, Co-founder/President Hearts Afire

January 13 –As I started my morning in prayer, I realized that we could not stand back and watch but that as medical missionaries in the US and being so close to Haiti something would have to be done.  But what and How?  I received an emergency phone call from Dr. Maria Mallarino at about 11am who had organized with the assistance of her family in the Dominican Republic and the Dominican Republic government access into Haiti with a first response team consisting of 11 people made up of her team from Florida Cancer Specialists.  Dr. Mallarino asked for assistance from Hearts Afire Inc.  Hearts Afire is a Christian non-profit international organization providing medical and spiritual support to 8 countries through the support of short term missions.  However when Haiti earthquake occurred with much prayer the founders and board decided unanimously to quickly upscale Hearts Afire into a first response organization.  The Hearts Afire Haiti Relief project was formed,  separate accounts and project budget were setup and emergency volunteer committee was started.   Believe it or not all of this was done within 24-96 hours. 

January 15 – The first response team leaves with leadership through Dr. Maria Mallarino.  All team members lay down their time, their money, and their families to run to the aid of these helpless victims of the earthquake.  They arrive through the Dominican Republic and with the aid of their family and the Dominican they go on into Haiti.  They arrived in Port-au-Prince and worked in conjunction with various organizations including the Dominican red cross, orphanages, and the Haitian physicians.   They worked night and day trying to save lives, providing medical and nursing support to the wounded and to the surgeons.  Initial assessment in Port-au-Prince was completed.  Emergency call  for Orthopedic surgeons and general surgeons made.

January 18 – Dr. Maria Mallarino and the first response team arrives back in the US.  Second team deployed after initial assessment.  This team was comprised of four including Dr. Joseph Pecoraro (team leader, co-founder and chairman of Hearts Afire and general/vascular surgeon), Dr. David Sugar (orthopedic surgeon), Dr. Leonard Bernard (anesthesiologist), Dr. Thomas Nutter (anesthesiologist).  They flew on commercial flights to the Dominican Republic and with our Dominican missionaries from Corazon Del Siervo with whom we have long term relationships, a bus and driver were rented and they made the long drive into Haiti.  Initial stop was made at Port-au-prince and since various organizations were already found on the ground, a stop was made at the only main Christian logistics center setup at the Quisqueya school compound.  The team stayed overnight and worked in Port-au-Prince but after the logistics center felt that Petit Goave was the place to go then the team left that morning and arrived to the Wesleyan compound.  A rapid assessment was made of the Notre Dame hospital OR’s and after going through the buildings with a swiss structural engineer, it was felt that the OR where they were to work was safe.  They started quickly triaging patients and procedures were started.  They had brought surgical supplies and medications obtained from Manatee memorial and Blake hospitals and their private offices and proceeded to do 28 procedures over the next three days.  They visited the surrounding areas and better understood the extent of the trajedy of these people.  It was amazing how kind and thankful the people of Haiti were despite all the circimstances.  They returned January 23 back to the US.

January 22 – Dr. Maria Mallarino departs with her team on a donated plane into Port-au-prince.  A team of Dr. Mark Wittmann (anesthesiologist), Dr. Donald Slevin (orthopedic surgeon), Dr. Richard Valdesusso ( hand plastic surgery) accompanied her.   Lots of great work is done and they return January 25.

Vilma Vega MD, Co-founder/President Hearts Afire