- Healthcare in Haiti
In the town of Dondon with approximately 35,000 inhabitants there are only two small clinics with one part-time physician. Most pregnant women do not get any prenatal care, and are delivered at home by an untrained midwife. This leads to high maternal and infant mortality rates. In cases of emergency, it is an almost 2 hour trip on poor roads to Cap Haitien for emergency care.
According to US-AID:
- Roughly 40% of the population lack access to essential health and nutrition services;
- Only 45% of all children (12 to 23 months) are fully vaccinated and 22% of children under 5 years old are stunted in their growth.
- Public expenditure for health is low, representing only 10% of all health financing for the country with a heavy reliance on international funding.
- Attracting and retaining qualified health professionals is it chronic struggle, with as few as 4 health professionals per 10,000 people. The 2010 earthquake exacerbated an existing deficit of health infrastructure, such as storage facilities, clean water, sanitation and electric power.
In order to improve the availability of quality care, we at Haitian Vision Foundation plan to establish a permanent medical clinic and eventual hospital. This effort was recently given a big boost when the town authorities gave us title to 3 acres of land to build our clinic!
Preventative Medicine and Chronic Disease Clinic
In many areas of Haiti, healthcare is primarily provided by foreign aid workers who run short term clinics intermittently. While this is a great service (and HVF also has a mobile clinic) It is vital to improve regular healthcare services through permanent facilities. This would allow an appropriate emphasis on vaccination, preventative care, education and management of chronic diseases. In our Chronic Disease Clinic at Haitian Vision Foundation, we have targeted 3 chronic diseases for long term management; Hypertension, Diabetes and Seizure Disorders. We now provide daily medication at no cost year round to almost 400 patients with these chronic problems. We employ a full time nurse and nurses aid who check on the patients and provide them with their medications.
In many areas of Haiti, healthcare is primarily provided by foreign aid workers who run short term clinics intermittently. While this is a great service (and HVF also has a mobile clinic) It is vital to improve regular healthcare services through permanent facilities. This would allow an appropriate emphasis on vaccination, preventative care, education and management of chronic diseases. In our Chronic Disease Clinic at Haitian Vision Foundation, we have targeted 3 chronic diseases for long term management; Hypertension, Diabetes and Seizure Disorders. We now provide daily medication at no cost year round to almost 400 patients with these chronic problems. We employ a full time nurse and nurses aid who check on the patients and provide them with their medications.
Mobile Clinic
Once or twice a year US based providers (including Haitian physician Dr. Saint-Vil) travel to Dondon where we meet up with Haitian volunteers and healthcare providers as well as some paid staff to run a week long mobile clinic. In this clinic we screen for chronic diseases as noted above and treat acute and chronic medical conditions. Our last mobile clinic in August 2018 was a great success with many acute problems treated and many patients enrolled in our chronic disease clinic.
Once or twice a year US based providers (including Haitian physician Dr. Saint-Vil) travel to Dondon where we meet up with Haitian volunteers and healthcare providers as well as some paid staff to run a week long mobile clinic. In this clinic we screen for chronic diseases as noted above and treat acute and chronic medical conditions. Our last mobile clinic in August 2018 was a great success with many acute problems treated and many patients enrolled in our chronic disease clinic.
Clinic Building Project
In order to continue to provide the above services and expand the people that we can reach, it has become apparent that we need a permanent building. During our recent mobile clinic in August 2018, we met will town leaders to finalize arrangements for HVF to obtain almost 3 acres of land on which we can build out clinic! The only cost to us was the nominal cost of deeding the land to HVF. This partnership with the town is a testament to what we have accomplished in a short span of time and also importantly demonstrates the town's confidence in and commitment to this project. At this site we plan to establish a permanent bed equipped clinic. This will give our chronic disease clinic a permanent location and allow us to hire Haitian physicians, nurses, nurse assistants and lab technicians, providing much needed jobs.
We plan to start in a modular fashion, building first an outpatient clinic with pharmacy, lab and room for x-rays. We will then add the capacity to keep 1 or 2 patients overnight if necessary. If the need continues to grow as we expect (the need is already there) and the resources are available we then plan to build a full-service hospital. Ultimately our goal is have a Medical Center that can provide maternity, adult and pediatric care and emergency services, staffed by Haitians and providing state of the art care to Haitians in a sustainable fashion.
In order to continue to provide the above services and expand the people that we can reach, it has become apparent that we need a permanent building. During our recent mobile clinic in August 2018, we met will town leaders to finalize arrangements for HVF to obtain almost 3 acres of land on which we can build out clinic! The only cost to us was the nominal cost of deeding the land to HVF. This partnership with the town is a testament to what we have accomplished in a short span of time and also importantly demonstrates the town's confidence in and commitment to this project. At this site we plan to establish a permanent bed equipped clinic. This will give our chronic disease clinic a permanent location and allow us to hire Haitian physicians, nurses, nurse assistants and lab technicians, providing much needed jobs.
We plan to start in a modular fashion, building first an outpatient clinic with pharmacy, lab and room for x-rays. We will then add the capacity to keep 1 or 2 patients overnight if necessary. If the need continues to grow as we expect (the need is already there) and the resources are available we then plan to build a full-service hospital. Ultimately our goal is have a Medical Center that can provide maternity, adult and pediatric care and emergency services, staffed by Haitians and providing state of the art care to Haitians in a sustainable fashion.
