TOGETHER, WE BUILD HEALTH SYSTEMS

The baby boy arrived 14 weeks early and weighed less than 2 pounds. Thamar Julmiste, a nurse at St. Thérèse Hospital in Hinche, Haiti, immediately noticed he wasn’t breathing. Luckily, she and a colleague knew what to do. They performed CPR on the tiny newborn and were relieved to see his birdlike ribcage rise and fall on its own.

“People didn’t think he was going to live,” Julmiste recalled. But he did.

Julmiste followed what she and her colleagues learned during a training for nurses in neonatal intensive care. Two more groups of nurses from around the country have since studied the same theory and clinical skills in a free training at University Hospital in Mirebalais. They are the first among a growing group of neonatal and pediatric intensive care nurse specialists in Haiti.

Like Julmiste’s tiny patient, everyone deserves the best level of care. But that’s only possible when health professionals receive the best level of training.

Because strong health systems depend on strong “human systems,” we are intent on bringing the resources of leading medical institutions directly to the communities we serve, building each local workforce of health professionals according to the highest standard of care.

Besides trainings for nurses, our medical residency programs in Haiti continue to welcome new doctors every year in specialties such as surgery, emergency medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics. Last year alone, 37 residents enrolled in the programs. We’re also training nurses and community health workers in Liberia and elsewhere.

We’re expanding our non-clinical education as well. Last year, our first class of students at the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda began their graduate degree in Global Health Delivery, which focuses on how to create national health care systems in developing countries. Lecturers from the Ministry of Health, Harvard Medical School, and other institutions taught students everything from epidemiology to budget management. Nearly 250 professionals from around the world have applied for 27 spots in the third class, which will start in September.

This is lasting work, made possible by compassionate, committed people like you. Thank you for giving your time and resources. Because of you, we are well-positioned to deliver high-quality global health training in some of the world’s poorest communities.

We Go. We Make House Calls. We Build Health Systems. We Stay.

See Partners In Health's full 2016 Annual Report.