Haiti

Poorest country's people suffer from HIV and AIDs

Haiti is a chronically unstable country in economic decline, ranked by the United Nations as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Haitian families are poorer now than they were 40 years ago. The United Nations Development Program estimates that nearly 80 percent of Haitians live on less than $2 a day. Additionally, Haiti suffers the highest HIV and AIDS prevalence in the Americas at 2.2 percent. Few people live past 61. The land is severely degraded and deforested. Civil conflicts keep the country in persistent political instability.

Haiti 2010 earthquake

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked southern Haiti on January 12, 2010. One of the hardest hit areas is Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital. With a death toll in the thousands and millions of Haitians left homeless, injured and struggling to survive, the earthquake is the worst disaster to hit the country in 200 years.

Our work in Haiti

Medical Teams International first sent volunteers to Haiti in 1994 to assist the victims of a civil conflict. In 2004, we deployed six disaster response teams to provide health care services for those wounded in Hurricane Jeanne. In 2006, we funded a safer home-birth program through Catholic Relief Services and sent a midwifery team to train traditional birth attendants on effective ways to oversee delivery. In the first two weeks following the 2010 earthquake, Medical Teams International sent 8 teams with more than 35 doctors, nurses and other health professionals.

Over the past two years, Medical Teams International has mobilized 84 teams and more than 374 medical volunteers to provide care and training to the people of Haiti. We delivered more than $10,496,464 of medicines and medical supplies. Further, we provided 2,464 rehabilitation sessions and much-needed prosthetics to those disabled in the earthquake through our Haiti Advantage program. Our work teams helped to rebuild clinics and medical facilities at various locations throughout the country.

Medical Teams International plans to send 41 medical teams to Haiti from July, 2011 through June, 2012 to support our work with Haiti Advantage, the Beraca Hospital, the Canaan Clinic and the work of our partner, Haiti Foundation of Hope.

Haiti Advantage program

Effective July, 2010, Medical Teams International has taken responsibility for oversight and funding of the Haiti Advantage program. Since 2001, Haiti Advantage has been providing assistance to persons with disabling conditions in Haiti. In August, 2009, our Prosthetics/Orthotics facility was chosen as one of the premiere clinics in the country. For more information, please see our Haiti Advantage page.

Centre Medical Beraca & La Coma Medical Outpost

The projects at Centre Medical Beraca, is a 78 bed ‘full service’ hospital with very basic Maternity, Pediatric, Surgery, Internal Medicine, and Infectious Disease focus. It is located in La Puente, allowing it to serve some of the most marginalized 450,000 people in Haiti. The hospital was founded in 1944 by Missionary Nurse Caroline Bradshaw and has survived through natural disasters, political upheavals and financial hardships, a testament to the dedication, hard work and ingenuity of its staff.

The La Coma Medical Outpost is a clinic that is two hours away by motor vehicle from the hospital. Few from this remote region can access the hospital. This unit provides basic primary care, an HIV/AIDS program, growth charting and emergency supplemental nutrition for severly malnourished children. The hospital and clinic’s mission is to serve the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the communities.

Medical Teams International is supporting the hospital by:

Providing 12 medical teams that support specialty training needs and primary care efforts at both the hospital and the remote medical outpost at La Coma.
Continuing to support the hospital’s Cholera Treatment Center.
Employing the services of a full time OB/GYN to support maternal health needs in the area.
Filling critical life-saving gaps in patient care and pharmacy.
Aiding the hospital with infrastructural improvements necessary to improve patient care, expand services and break down barriers to accessing medical services.

Medical Teams International will also provide financial support to our partner Haiti Foundation of Hope. With that funding, the organization will:

Manage a community health program that will impact the lives of 3,000 people in northern Haiti.
Improve access to and utilization of maternal health services for pregnant women and mothers.
Improve the nutritional status of children less than five years of age.

Canaan Medical Clinic

The Internally Displaced Peoples’ Camp (IDP) of Canaan is an IDP camp about an hour north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where approximately 90,000 people have resettled after the 2011 earthquake. The clinic is managed by Medical Teams International Haitian staff nurses and is offered supplimental support by visiting US-based volunteer physicians and nurses. The nurses provide consultations, exams, medications and health training to the population living in Canaan on a daily basis. We support the Canaan IDP Community by:

Staffing and managing daily primary care medical clinics that care for over 18,000 residents of the Canaan IDP camp annually.
Building the clinic structure that serves as a primary care clinic, community center and church.
Providing referrals and arranging transfers of those in need of acute care.
Providing pharmaceutical services at the camp.
Sending 12 primary care and specialty service volunteer teams from the US annually.

Our plans for continued aid

Medical Teams International continues to provide hospital care with surgical capacity, establish support to local health centers and operate mobile medical units to aid in the transition from relief to rehabilitation. Through its new local office in Port-au-Prince, Medical Teams International is working to meet immediate to medium-term orthopedic and medical care needs and help re-establish a functioning health care system.

Our partners in Haiti

Haiti Foundation of Hope is an international Christian non-governmental organization that focuses on education, economic development, and health care services in Terre Blanche,northern Haiti. The founders of HFH have lived and worked in Haiti for more than a decadetwenty years and opened a permanent health clinic in February, 2007, that serves approximately 10,000 people a year. The clinic launched a community health program in 2009 and plans to serve people living in rural villages of Terre Blanche, Dubed Dou and Finnel.

We are sending three medical brigades to Haiti this year to support the work of our partner Haiti Foundation of Hope in Terra Blanche. We will also provide financial support to Haiti Foundation of Hope. With that funding, Haiti Foundation of Hope will:

Manage a community health program that will impact the lives of 3,000 people in northern Haiti.
Improve access to and utilization of maternal health services for pregnant women and mothers.
Improve the nutritional status of children under 5 years of age.

Our partnerships for disaster relief during the earthquake included Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), World Relief, Surgical Implant Generation Network (SIGN), Haiti Foundation of Hope, HaitiOne and the Wesleyan Church in Haiti. With these partners, our teams provided disaster relief aid through medicines, supplies and medical services in local hospitals and in the tent cities all around Port-au-Prince.

Additional Information on Haiti

For more information, please see our 2010 earthquake disaster relief efforts photos, videos, and stories.

Where We Work