By Marline Jean Grand | Development Officer
Executive Summary
Between October and December 2025, Haiti’s humanitarian and health landscape was defined by escalating violence, mass displacement, and severe disruptions to health service delivery. Armed conflict between non-state armed groups and limited state security forces continued unabated across Port-au-Prince and expanding into key regions such as Artibonite, Arcahaie, Pernier, Village de Dieu, and Bas Delmas, severely restricting mobility and undermining access to essential services. Despite these challenges, ZL’s commitment to serving communities remained unwavering. Through donor-supported operational investments, ZL ensured that essential health services continued for the most vulnerable, demonstrating resilience, adaptability, and compassion in one of the world’s most difficult operating environments.
The Crisis
Violence across Haiti deepened as armed groups continued to exert territorial control, erecting checkpoints, imposing illegal tolls, and disrupting critical transport routes. National highways linking Port-au-Prince to northern and central regions became perilous, creating operational barriers for patients and humanitarian actors alike. Record levels of internal displacement continued throughout October and November 2025. According to international organizations, more than 1.4 million Haitians have been forced from their homes, over 50% of them children, seeking refuge in informal camps and host communities under arduous conditions. In displacement settings, acute food insecurity, infectious diseases, and untreated injuries compound suffering, especially among children and older adults. The human toll reveals the true stakes. Patients walking miles to reach care. Health workers enduring personal risks. Mothers and children in crisis. A multinational Gang Suppression Force initiative was formalized in late 2025, with intent to counter gang expansion and stabilize priority corridors — a development watched closely by humanitarian actors for potential impacts on access and safety.
Zanmi Lasante’s Role and Strategic Response
In the meantime, civil society and local partners have increasingly filled critical gaps where formal services faltered, supporting shared storage, transport coordination, and delivery of medicines to safer locations. Clinical excellence is inseparable from operational resilience. At a time when many health actors were forced to suspend or scale back operations, ZL remained a cornerstone of service delivery for vulnerable populations. The organization confronted systemic pressures while maintaining uninterrupted delivery of high-quality, equitable care across its network of hospitals and clinics. Oftentimes, patients were unable to get to facilities, therefore, ZL organized mobile clinics to enhance access to care at the community-level. Patients were screened for malnutrition, NCDs, and other prevelant illnesses, as well as received follow-up care by community healthcare workers (CHWs) and clinica staff.
National fuel scarcity and price volatility posed existential threats to clinical continuity. Donor-funded fuel enabled uninterrupted power for generators, ambulances, cold chain systems, and critical clinical equipment. This kept operating rooms functional, emergency care available, and life-saving interventions delivered around the clock. Given the heightened threat to health workers and patients, funds were allocated to enhanced security infrastructure and trained personnel at health facilities. These measures ensured safe facility operations and the protected movement of staff and supplies despite surrounding violence.
Proactive preventive and corrective maintenance minimize generator downtime. This reliability directly supported sustained oxygen production, laboratory diagnostics, surgical services, and emergency care — often under the most demanding conditions. With Haiti’s domestic supply chains severely compromised by insecurity and logistical bottlenecks, donor support covered rising freight costs and enabled timely delivery of essential medicines, diagnostics, and emergency medical supplies across ZL’s network.
Contributions toward core operational functions were not merely financial inputs. They constituted a strategic investment in sustaining life-saving services during a national emergency.
Mitigation Solutions
Through flexible allocation of operational funds, ZL was able to maintain uninterrupted emergency, maternal, pediatric, and chronic disease services; Reduce the likelihood of facility closures or service reductions during periods of acute national disruption; Protect staff safety, morale, and retention through secure working environments and reliable logistical support; Ensure continuity of care for vulnerable populations who rely on ZL as their primary—and often only—source of quality healthcare. These outcomes reflect ZL’s capacity to sustain high-impact programming while adapting to an increasingly volatile operational context.
Building Forward: Strategic Priorities for Resilience
Understanding the interconnected nature of challenges is essential to designing long-term strategies that stabilize service delivery, protect health workers and patients, and strengthen national health resilience in Haiti. The period from October through December 2025 demonstrated both the profound vulnerability of Haiti’s health system and the remarkable resilience of communities and health workers. ZL enabled the continuation of essential health services, upheld dignity for thousands of patients, and reaffirmed the critical role of flexible, resilience-focused support in crisis settings. This demonstrates that targeted operational support is a powerful lever for preserving health system functionality during crisis. Your support is as always, invaluable, empowering us to continue impacting the lives of thousands in meaningful ways.
By Coralie Noisette | Director of Development
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