Rebuilding the public health and health professional education systems

PIH/ZL has long worked in partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) to strengthen public health infrastructure and services in the Central Plateau and Lower Artibonite. Since the earthquake, we have expanded our commitment to rebuild Haiti’s public health and health education systems in those areas and to support the MSPP’s efforts to reconstruct, reinforce, and decentralize the systems on a national scale.

Mirebalais

Less than six months after the earthquake, PIH broke ground for a new, 180,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art teaching hospital in Mirebalais, a city approximately 35 miles north of Port-au-Prince. Prior to January 12, we had planned to build a smaller, community hospital on this site. But after the earthquake devastated medical facilities and the only teaching hospital in Port-au-Prince, the MSPP approached PIH/ZL with a request to expand plans into a larger teaching hospital. When it opens its doors in early 2012, the Mirebalais Hospital will be Haiti’s largest public hospital outside of the capital city. The new hospital will have 320 beds and will offer clinical facilities not currently available at any public site in Haiti, including both adult and neonatal intensive care units, and an operating theatre complex with six operating rooms built to US standards and equipped to handle the most complex surgeries. 

The Mirebalais Hospital project is the centerpiece of PIH’s efforts to build long-term capacity in the health system, and to expand and improve health education in Haiti. It will address the dire need for medical care in Mirebalais, a city with no functioning hospital whose population has swelled to 160,000 since the earthquake. The hospital will also serve as a national referral center, offering a level of care never before available at a public hospital in Haiti. And at a time when Haiti desperately needs skilled health professionals, it will provide high quality education for the next generation of Haitian nurses, medical students, and resident physicians, with the support of MSPP and medical faculty from US and Haiti alike.

HUEH

The earthquake collapsed several buildings and badly damaged others at l’Hôpital de l’Université d’Etat d’Haïti (HUEH) – Port-au-Prince’s largest hospital and the country’s only public teaching hospital. Within 48 hours, a team of PIH/ZL medical and engineering staff arrived to assess the situation and provide clinical and infrastructure assistance. During the following weeks, we helped restore electricity, brought in volunteer surgical teams and urgently needed equipment and supplies, and responded to the Haitian administration’s request to coordinate more than a dozen large non-governmental organizations, as well as the US Army and other militaries.

Our role at the hospital has changed over the course of the year. By the end of June, the Haitian staff resumed full responsibility for clinical operations. PIH/ZL has continued to assist the hospital in a variety of ways. We helped negotiate and manage a $3.8 million grant from the American Red Cross (ARC) to support salaries for existing staff at the hospital, and partnered with the ARC to implement a new performance-based pay system, for which we provide ongoing in-kind administrative support.