Expand Maternal Healthcare in Northern Haiti

Care 2 Communities (C2C) is a Haitian-led organization that serves poor and low-income communities in Haiti who lack access to high-quality healthcare, focusing on women, children, and those suffering from chronic non-communicable diseases. Our model for community-based healthcare leverages the power of collaboration in order to deliver impact: C2C partners with the government to harness the assets of the public sector while integrating best practices and innovation from the private sector to deliver best-in-class, sustainable healthcare services in one of the world’s most challenging health markets. Since C2C’s inception more than a decade ago, we have been dedicated to increasing the uptake of quality care by expecting and new mothers in Haiti, which has insufficient maternal health care access at baseline – a challenge that intensifies in rural areas. According to the most recent data, only two-thirds of pregnant women in rural Haiti completed the minimum number of prenatal visits recommended by the Ministry of Health. Prenatal visits are critical to the health of mother and child and can prevent preterm labor and low birth weight, especially for high-risk women. There is even lower uptake of postnatal care in Haiti, with nearly 70% of women forgoing any kind of postnatal care and only 31% of infants receiving a healthcare visit within 24 hours following birth (44% urban and 24% rural).

Care 2 Communities provides comprehensive maternal health services and education, from pregnancy to postnatal care, across our network of clinics operated in partnership with the Haitian government. Last year, these health centers saw women and their families through nearly 6,000 prenatal visits–more than double our reach the prior year following our expansion of this dedicated program. Since then, we have proudly launched the program at the Savanette clinic, the seventh and final facility in our current network (and shown in a photo accompanying this report). Embedding our maternal health program at Savanette will enhance access to care for mothers and newborns in the area, connecting families to close-to-home services that surpass local standards.

Other recent investments include installing three new ultrasound machines to strengthen our capacity to meet the obstetric imaging needs of pregnant women, and providing additional training on obstetric imaging for seven maternal health nurses. We also introduced HIV screening at another site, Cité Chauvel, enabling C2C to provide functional HIV care for mothers and children in three of our seven clinics. Other ongoing activities include maternal health education sessions, promotion and awareness campaigns, educational videos on display at clinics, postnatal kit distribution for mothers and newborns, and personalized follow-up for all pregnant women enrolled in the program.

As C2C makes these investments to support safe and healthy pregnancies and births for our patients, we are observing high attendance at prenatal service offerings, and receiving increased appreciation from community members for the expansion of our service package. We continue to provide weekly on-site supervision to clinic staff, with a focus on improving the capacities of those providing maternal health care. C2C monitors the impact of our maternal health intervention through these regular supervisory and at-the-elbow training visits with health workers, as well as with regular evaluations of service delivery through patient file reviews. Key next steps to deepen the reach and impact of C2C’s maternal health initiative include expanding prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV services to the four other clinics in our network, equipping the network with two additional ultrasound machines, and continuing promotional and educational activities to support more births to take place in health facilities across communities where C2C works.