PIH Hurricane Matthew Response in Haiti

Photo: Doctors and medical staff share notes during morning shift change in the emergency department at University Hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti, in February 2018.

Thank you for your support of Partners In Health’s Hurricane Matthew response efforts in Haiti. 

As you know, both the devastating earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016 underscored Haiti’s dire need for trained emergency care physicians.

These two severe natural disasters highlighted that low-and –middle-income countries needed tremendous improvement in combating both infectious and non-communicable diseases in addition to traumatic injuries.

Partners In Health, in conjunction with Haiti’s Ministry of Health, decided to tackle the task of boosting the number of Haiti’s emergency care physicians by developing a six-month program that would quickly train doctors and equip them with the knowledge and tools to be prepared to assist in current and future emergencies.

Haiti’s growing network of emergency doctors is rooted in the innovative six-month program that has pioneered emergency medical training in the Caribbean nation, paved the way for Haiti’s ongoing expansion of lifesaving critical care, and created a model for filling a severe gap in care found in developing countries around the world.

Dr. Rouhani, Partners In Health senior adviser for clinical operations, said she and colleagues in Haiti developed the six-month training program in the years immediately following that disaster, at a time “when there was no in-country emergency care capacity.”

The group developed and implemented a six-month emergency medicine training program, designed to provide substantive instruction and experience in an efficient timeframe to boost staffing for emergency care. Fourteen physicians from across Haiti joined the program, held from March to August 2014, and received classroom instruction as well as supervised clinical time at the University of Mirebalais.

The International Journal of Emergency Medicine published results of the program in April 2018, in a study titled: “Addressing the Immediate Need for Emergency Providers in Resource-Limited Settings: the Model of a Six-Month Emergency Medicine Curriculum in Haiti.” The program addressed a well-known but hard-to-tackle problem: Short, quick trainings of a week or two helped meet immediate needs for some emergency and critical skills, but did not give doctors enough hands-on experience or expertise to manage the breadth of emergency care needs. Meanwhile, multi-year residency programs trained highly skilled specialists, but took too long to fill immediate demands and gaps in care.

The program’s effectiveness continues to resonate today, as the six-month training led to a three-year emergency medicine residency program at University Hospital. The program is thriving, and remains the only emergency medicine residency in Haiti.

The six-month training program could lead to success stories in other countries, as well, as a model for filling vital gaps in emergency care.

In Haiti, a country often devastated by the effects of natural disasters such as hurricanes, any increase in the number of emergency physicians is crucial. Programs like the one listed above aims to saves lives by equipping a network of readily trained physicians who serve as Haiti’s first responders in combating infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases and injuries. Your support to Partners In Health makes all the difference. Thank you.