Expand Maternal Healthcare in Northern Haiti

We've successfully implemented the program in two additional clinics, expanding our reach and bringing the total number of clinics hosting the program. These new facilities are strategically located in Bas-Limbe and Roche-Plate, enabling us to serve a broader demographic and contribute to improved maternal health outcomes in these regions.

We've brought a second obstetrician-gynecologist to enhance our service provision. This expert will mentor our team, training our dedicated nurses in maternal-infant care and, specifically, conducting and interpreting obstetric ultrasounds. We're confident this will equip our team with the skills to deliver better patient care.

We have also expanded our team with the inclusion of five new nurses. This personnel increase has facilitated a boost in our prenatal consultations offering from once a week to three times weekly. This shift is already showing a significant impact. Since the expansion into new clinics, we've conducted over 200 initial prenatal visits and observed a consistent month-on-month rise in these visits.

These positive results are a testament to the program's success and, more importantly, your generous contributions. We thank you for your continued support and commitment to improving maternal health in Haiti. With your help, we can further this mission, ultimately providing safer pregnancies and healthier futures for more women and children.

We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress! 

As mentioned in Care 2 Communities' previous report, there were delays in the execution plan of expanding the maternal health program due to some of our activities not being carried out because of political turbulence across the country from September to Mid-December 2022. Just recently, the situation has calmed down, and we were able to start implementing a program expansion.

We successfully recruited five new nurses who specialize in maternal and child care. We are currently in the process of training them. The midwife that has been with us for more than three years was promoted to supervisor of the recruits, participated in their practical training, and will oversee the management of the program. We reached an agreement with our current OB-GYN to ensure the training and evaluation of the five nurses and our midwife on their performance and interpretation of obstetric ultrasounds over a period of 6 months. Furthermore, we bought a new ultrasound machine and hired an additional OB-GYN. 

We plan to implement the program in two new clinics; H5-Sinek and H8-Roche-Plate, in the first quarter of 2023. All the logistical preparations have been made, and only the practical training of the newly recruited nurses remains to be completed. As part of the expansion, we are going from 1 to 3 days of antenatal consultation to meet the demand in our catchment area. Note that the OB-GYN will continue to provide ultrasounds to all pregnant women in the program at the same time as he trains nurses to perform and interpret obstetrical ultrasounds.

Lastly, we had the chance to evaluate the performance of the program in 2022. It must be emphasized that last year, we worked in a very difficult political and economic context, and we missed weeks of work due to the roadblocks and protests. However, we still managed to achieve a good performance overall. To have an idea of our progress, see the table below, summarizing C2C’s maternal health performance in 2022 versus 2021.

Performance Indicators                                                        2021     2022

Total # of pregnant women seen in the program:                    932        886

Total # of pregnant women having at least 4 prenatal visits:   383        390

Total # of pregnant women having received a postnatal visit:  17         390