There was simply not enough room for all the children inside the medical clinic in Les Cayes, Haiti. Some waited in the hallway. Others were in the waiting room. Still others stood or sat outside on the clinic's porch or beneath the shade of a nearby tree. Many of the younger children sat in their mothers' laps; some of the older ones wandered about or played with friends.

They waited to see Dr. Karla Seibert, the pediatrician working that day in a medical clinic facilitated by Hope for Haiti, a MAP International partner organization that operates health and education programs throughout the country. Each month, MAP provides Hope for Haiti with more than $100,000 in medicine to stock its medical clinics.

Seibert, who traveled to Haiti earlier this year to volunteer in several clinics, treated children with sicknesses ranging from scabies and other skin infections to stomach problems, parasites, anemia and various infectious diseases.

The most astounding problem, Siebert said, is malnutrition.

"The problem is tremendous," she said. "It's prevalent everywhere in Haiti. We see many small children who are developmentally delayed because of a lack of nutrition."

The paucity of available food is compounded by the problem of parasites, which children contract through their contaminated drinking water or by walking barefoot. The parasites then siphon away a portion of the few calories the children ingest.

Malnutrition, in turn, leads to other problems, such as anemia.

"Very often, one disease just leads to another," Siebert said.

Haiti's local hospitals and clinics have neither the staff nor the equipment to treat the thousands of patients that go to their doors every day.

With a population of more than 8 million people, Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Eighty percent of the people live in poverty, many on less than $1 a day. Not even 40 percent of the people in the capital of Port au Prince have running water. Five percent of the population is infected with HIV or AIDS, the highest infection rate in the Americas.

MAP works to provide essential medicines and medical supplies to the people through Hope for Haiti as well as partner organizations such as Christian Aid Ministries and Partners in Health. Last year MAP provided more than $9 million to the Haitian people through these and other organizations.

MAP International provides more than $230 million annually in pharmaceuticals and health supplies for clinics and hospitals in more than 110 countries where access to these goods is limited. MAP also operates health clinics, hospitals, and healthcare programs on four continents.