Over the past year, the civil turmoil in Haiti has become so extreme that various gangs control most of Port-au-Prince and the Dumay/ Croix-des-Bouquets zone, with no clear end in sight. Nonetheless, Dr. Jacques, HAM’s Medical Director and CEO of Haitian operations, has been able to negotiate safe passage for our staff and patients, allowing the Dumay Clinic to remain open and operating. Even gang leaders recognize the importance of health care in the communities they control. The Dumay clinic now regularly treats victims of gun violence.
Beyond Dumay, the HAM initiative begun in response to last year’s earthquake in south-west Haiti has become an ongoing surgical care program for the Nippes region. While working with partner hospitals in the cities of Les Cayes and Miragoane, Dr. Jacques identified a greater systemic medical challenge in the region. Its hospitals had no resident surgeons nor anesthetists on staff, forcing Nippes patients to travel to Port-au-Prince for surgery, a journey made perilous by poor, gang-controlled roads. Last year, after an ambulance transporting earthquake victims to Port-au Prince was hijacked, it became clear that it would be safer and more efficient to transport medical teams and supplies to Nippes via small plane than to transport surgical patients to the capitol. This inspired HAM’s latest project-- the Nippes Surgical Program, which flies Port-au-Prince-based specialist teams twice monthly to the region to offer critical surgical care.