Port-au-Prince (EFE).- Saturated consultations due to the closure of other health centers, work overload, staff shortage. This is the challenge that La Paix University Hospital, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, faces when caring for a high number of patients, some of them gunshot wounds and victims of violence.
It is a task in which this hospital puts all its efforts to be able to treat people from all over the Haitian capital, as the director of La Paix, Paul Junior Fontilus, told EFE.
And the fact is that, after the closure of the General Hospital – larger, with more capacity and whose reopening is not possible due to the clashes in its surroundings and because it is under gang control -, La Paix takes care of the patients who previously they went there. Their own patients join them.
Haiti has 39% of hospitals closed
La Paix (now the only operational university hospital in the city and which, as Fontilus admits, has been “very affected” by the closure of the General Hospital, the country’s main public center) does not have enough capacity to cope with all that load. . But, with effort, it is doing it with its own staff (600 workers in total), for which a contingency plan was activated in order to mobilize available resources and urgently respond to needs.
As EFE can see, it is a hospital with modern, ‘intelligent’ facilities, with 210 beds that are few enough to care for so many people, which is why, according to Fontilus, a person is treated and sent home as soon as possible. as soon as possible (sometimes only within a couple of hours) and, shortly after, that same bed is occupied by another patient.
The Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population estimates that last April about 39% of inpatient health centers had closed due to insecurity and looting in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, according to an article by the Pan American Organization of Health (PAHO).
Violence hits healthcare
Violence affects health in two ways: many people cannot reach the hospital in time due to difficulties in traveling due to insecurity and, in addition, a significant number of injured people require assistance, victims of armed gangs.
According to data from the director of La Paix Hospital, from February 29 (when the escalation of violence began) until April, that health center received 220 patients with gunshot wounds.
And to them we must add the rest of the sick or injured who usually arrive at a hospital to receive treatment.
In addition, infectious patients are treated who previously went to another hospital, “but now it is closed and they come here, where they receive care,” says the director, also aware of the danger posed by the garbage crisis that the city is suffering in the face of possible epidemics. .
Asked if there are expected to be more patients due to possible clashes between gang members and members of the multinational security support mission that will soon arrive in the country, Fontilus acknowledges that they are considering this possibility and are preparing for it.
The importance of cooperation
La Paix Hospital suffers the repercussions of the lack of fuel or the time that the airport and port have been closed, but to face these shortcomings and difficulties it has the support of international cooperation and also the Haitian Red Cross.
In addition, PAHO has helped set up the emergency room which, as EFE can see, has a modern and very clean appearance, with boxes separated by curtains and with the necessary material and space to be able to classify, stabilize and care for the patient when arrives at the emergency room.
This organization has also provided medicines and medical supplies, as well as fuel, so that the hospital can function.
On the other hand, the crisis and violence are leading many health workers to emigrate, especially to the United States, between 30 and 35% of health sector personnel, according to Fontilus, who trusts in a better future for health care to benefit of all Haitians.
