“This is definitely the most unique donation we have received, and it may be the most prominently displayed,’’ said Dr. David Walton, director of the $16 million project, which is being paid for by donors to Partners in Health, a Boston-based charity that works in countries around the world. “We hope they provide the healing environment a spiritual calm.’’
The pews were about to be scrapped during a recent renovation at the church when a local contractor helping with the project in Haiti saw an opportunity.
He knew the hospital required a lot of seating in patient waiting rooms and proposed to church officials and the project managers the idea of shipping the pews to Haiti.
They agreed, and this fall volunteers carefully dismantled the benches, packaged them in crates, and sent them on a container ship.
Three carpenters from Boston joined a team of Haitian carpenters who reassembled the pews and installed them at the hospital.
In total, they can seat about 500 people.
The shipping, which cost about $3,000, was paid for by Partners in Health, said Jim Ansara, director of construction for the hospital and former owner of Shawmut Design and Construction, which remodeled the church.
“The pews are incredibly beautiful, and by 9 a.m., you might have hundreds of patients in a waiting room waiting to be seen,’’ said Ansara, who attended an unveiling of the first phase of the hospital this week. “In a very religious country, this means a lot to people.’’
The pews now grace the main waiting area of the hospital’s community health center, where children will receive malnutrition screening and vaccinations. They are also set up in the women’s health outpatient waiting room and the ambulatory care waiting room.
The Mirebalais hospital, the largest of its kind in Haiti, will offer services previously unavailable at any public hospital in the impoverished country of nearly 10 million people, including adult and pediatric intensive care units and six operating rooms equipped for thoracic surgery.
The hospital will also provide training for the next generation of Haitian doctors, nurses, and other health professionals. And it will help decentralize hospital services, many of which are concentrated in Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital.
In an e-mail, after sitting in the newly installed pews at the hospital, St. Cecilia’s pastor, the Rev. John Unni, said he was elated that such a meaningful piece of the church found new life in a place of such desperate need.
“It’s wonderful knowing they’re being used,’’ he wrote. “Very happy they’re finding new use!’’
