Healthcare in Haiti High quality healthcare is important to have for every person. Healthcare is crucial to living a healthy life. It is an investment everyone should get the chance to have no matter where they live. Unfortunately, Haiti’s healthcare system has never really held high standards and has been weak for many decades. After the earthquake at the beginning of 2010, with a magnitude of 7.0, killing more than 160,000 and displacing close to 1.5 million people, it declined even more and became even weaker (CNN, 2015). Their healthcare system definitely needs to improve as they often times depend on other countries to provide their immediate needs. Rossi (2016) says that America tries to improve and further develop their healthcare system …show more content…
Since there were so many healthcare facilities destroyed from the earthquake, the government quickly realized that they needed to aid in solving this problem. Therefore, they decided to build four hospitals almost immediately. “Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) continues to manage four hospitals built to replace the temporary structures that it set up immediately after the earthquake, where tens of thousands of Haitians benefit from free, high-quality care” (MSF, 2013). The government seemed to make a rational decision contemplating how many Haitians would be without medical care in the time of the earthquake. While the government did make this sensible decision, there are still delays in relays of their healthcare system much due to their poor economic status. Consequently, their healthcare system needs to be pushed to the top of the list for the Haitian authorities and the partnering nations. At the moment, there is a transition being made from emergency humanitarian-based response towards a development-based response. Planning and organization of funding will have to become a priority for Haiti to fix any situation of the cholera outbreak. Furthermore, it will be crucial that they also look at funding for any emergency responses that could …show more content…
The Haitian government continues to work on improving the quality of care and prevention of the healthcare system. Like previously mentioned, they are making a transition towards a development-based response system. Without the aid from other countries, they would not even have the ability to work on transitioning to a better response system for their residents. The aid from other nations also helps the economic stability. The Haitian government has been able to support the prevention and treatment through distribution of drinking purified water, oral rehydration salts, and soap for personal hygiene. They also have other partners helping establish a system for tracking each case of cholera and how to respond to each case. Another way to solve the crisis is to train healthcare workers to conduct activities on cholera prevention and treatment in Haiti. Additionally, a better architecture structure could have prevented the disease from spreading so rapidly. Providing a sanitary structure with trained people to aid in improving the ones who have cholera and then curing those who have it before reentering back into the environment. Therefore, seeing to the people of Haiti with health issues is important and could be improved even more, but having such a low economy easily prevents solutions to these particular
The country I have choose to utilize in the global case study is Haiti. The crisis is hurricane Matthew. As the lead nurse in a shelter working in this country and people are pouring into the shelter it is crucial to provide effective care and achieve desired patient outcomes. It is important to assess and triage the population properly, manage and prevent the spread of infection, and delegate tasks accordingly.
The earthquake of 2010 altered the way the people of Haiti looked at everyday life, as well as, it caused them to be deprived of all hope on creating a new beginning. On Tuesday January 12, 2010, the Haitian society knew that their world would never be the same. Having killed over 300,000 people and wounded more than 200,000 people, the magnitude 7.0 earthquake was demoralizing to the Haitians (“The 2010 Haiti Earthquake”). To make matters worse, following the magnitude 7.0 earthquake there were twelve aftershocks containing a magnitude larger than 5.0 (“Earthquake in Haiti”). The outcome of the earthquake was devastating to the extent that the minority of people who survived stood on the remains of their churches, grocery stores, and even their own homes. Corporations like Merlin USA and others around the globe are contributing in various ways to help try to rebuild Haiti’s nation. Working to repair Haiti’s demolished society, Merlin tries to bring appropriate health care to all susceptible associations in Haiti (“Haiti”). Strongly, Merlin continues to put in a great effort and they have tended to around 47,986 patients merely in Port-au-Prince (“Haiti”). Sorrowfully, people are constantly dying from Cholera in Haiti; nevertheless, it seems to them that nothing the world can offer will be able to cure the adversity they have encountered.
According to the Health Development Index, Haiti has the “poorest standards of living” (“Haiti”). Most live in huts and shelters. Many build on trash heaps, and their living environments are often highly unsanitary. Many family members live under the same roof in cramped quarters. They have “the worst health statistics in the
Illness and disease along with poverty still plague Haiti today. The effort to try and recover from the most recent earthquake tragedy has Haitians concerned. The conditions that they have endured in the past just to survive are worse than the conditions brought on by the earthquake. Some Haitian natives feel the Government is moving a bit slow in cleaning up and getting
In health care spending, Haiti ranks last in the western hemisphere, spending only US$83 per capita annually on health care. An even more striking figure is that there are only 25 physicians and 11 nurses per 100,000 population, although that number has been increasing recently due to an influx of Cuban trained Haitian doctors (MEDICC). Even in the capital city of Port-au-Prince medical care is limited with doctors and hospitals often requiring immediate cash payment for health services.
Groggily stumbling into the kitchen, I was met with nine pairs of eyes reminding me I wasn’t in America anymore. Eleven days ago, my team and I had flown into Port-au-Prince and driven to Jacmel, directed by Angel Wings International, a local organization that worked to deliver healthcare in Haiti. I received the run-down for the day: we were heading West toward a rural clinic located in Baie d’Orange. Climbing into a musty truck bed, I noticed a crew of dentists, doctors, and pharmacists accompanying us, signifying the most important day in our three-week-long trip. The truck revved into action, racing in Jacmel’s dusty streets, past the swelling river, through winding mountain passes, stopping at a tattered USAID tent that covered a burgeoning crowd of hundreds. Scanning the crowd returned the gaze of scared men, women, and children whose lives could be drastically changed through proper checkups and treatment.
Living on an island with two third world countries; the Dominican Republic and Haiti, I’ve seen firsthand the major differences between both of them. The Dominican Republic has evolved from a Spanish colony, while Haiti was originally French. Throughout the years, Haiti has become known for suffering from poverty, misery, and distress. Pauperism has become a huge issue for the Haitians and prosperity of the country as a whole due to a lack of health, education, and social services.
The response for the natural disasters that hit Haiti in 2010 was slow. Haiti improved the water supply of 340,000 people, supplied drugs to five cholera treatment facilities, provided free medical care to 39,000, and gave tools and seeds to help 23,000 people in farming households to help support themselves. These services not only improved shelters for 34,000 people but gave information to 116,000 people about disaster preparation. Volunteers ran literacy classes for 60,000 vulnerable women to help them support themselves and their families; additionally, they helped defend 25,000 residents from forced eviction. However, 3.5 years after the earthquake, the nation is still struggling with recovery with hundreds of thousands of people still living in tent camps.
On January 2010 a devastating thing happened that lasted approximately 90 seconds but forever changed Haiti. January 12 a devastating earthquake struck their country leaving behind a wrath of destruction. The earthquake measured out at 7.0 on the rector scale. Sadly, up 200,000 people were lost to the deadly earthquake. Over 1.5 million people were left homeless and after 5 years over 80,000 Haitians are still living in makeshift shelters and tents in Port-au
A majority of Haiti’s economy relies on foreign aid, with over half of its annual budget coming from outside sources. In 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti which inflicted $7.8 billion in damage which caused the GDP to contract by 5.4%. Foreign aid skyrocketed and about $13.5 billion in donations and pledges flooded in with 75% of them coming from donor nations and the other 25% coming from private charities or organizations. Even 5 years after the earthquake, the situation hasn’t improved. Haitians are still dependent on foreign donations to live. The heavy dependence on donations makes up for Haiti’s low participation in the global economy, which is also negative. Besides the foreign aid, Haiti exports very few products -- with annual exports that are about a third of Jamaica's exports. The United States, a country that has trade
Other problems that is affecting the countries is the citizen’s health. The people in Haiti are constantly dying because of many vicious diseases, such as Aids, HIV, Malaria, high blood pressure, seizures, fever and mental abnormalities etc. They catch these diseases and most likely not able to be cured because they are not much doctors and nurses to help cure these sickness among these people. Children, women and men are all sick and are slowly dying because of these sickness that they gain from the community that they live in, since they are poverty all around them it’s a little bit challenging for them to avoid catching infectious diseases from the people in the village. It’s important for the country to have has many doctors as they can
January 12th, 2010 Haiti faced a catastrophic earthquake that shook the whole country apart and had left the country in ruins. The world looked at Haiti as a nation in a desperate situation to revive itself to the country that it was before. But few have realized that Haiti was already in a place of disorder and as an underdeveloped country it has been struggling to succeed as a nation. From the way that Haiti handles itself, it is evident that this nation is not striving enough tobecome a developed country by taking necessary actions to improve the countries resources and itslifestyle. With the political structure being erratic and facing environmental issues like nothaving proper structural buildings, Haiti has been hurt deeply after the earthquake. This showsthat Haiti presents no urgency or immediate action to further improve its global status. Haiti still needs the support of developed countries such as the United States, to aid its way to have consistency in the political, social, and environmental structure of the country. The idea thatdeveloped countries need to show their global responsibility in reconstructing Haiti to pursuesuccess puts the pressure on developed countries to take actions. This is inexcusable as theearthquake is overshadowing Haiti’s problems within the nation, which has not been brought out.
As a public healthcare professional called in to help the situation in Haiti, first I would assess the amount of damage done by the hurricane, and determine what resources and how much of these resources we will need. My next step would be to get other organizations involved like FEMA, American Red Cross, and other volunteer agencies to help with whatever we will need to get Haiti back on track. One of the most important things for humans is clean water, lack of clean water will increase disease and with cholera already being a issue in Haiti, I would make sure to ship enough clean water to supply the people of Haiti; it would need to be enough to sustain them until we can offer a better means of access to clean water. It was said that their
The economics of Haiti has deceased in the last 4 years after the devastating earthquake that struck it 4 years ago. The Haiti economy has become very poor and one of the poorest country in the south, Central America and Caribbean region making it ranked 24 out of 29 countries in this area and its overall score is below average. Haiti’s economic freedom is 48.1 making it economy the 151st freest country while in the last several years Declines in the management of government spending, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom make its overall score 2.6 points lower than last year. Recovering from the disastrous earthquake in 2010 with the support of the U.S. recovering efforts “Haiti’s post-earthquake reconstruction efforts continue,
The country that this author chose to research about is Haiti, which has some major health concerns that are present in the country. Haiti is currently working on improving these health concerns. The topics that were chosen to examine Haiti’s health more in depth was women’s health, sanitation and hygiene, and nutrition. This paper will look further into the health of women in Haiti, as well as the sanitation and water supply and nutrition of the population. This paper will also address the steps that have been taken to help improve the health of women, nutrition, water, sanitation, and hygiene in Haiti. The population of Haiti as of 2015 is 10,711,000 (World Health Organization (WHO), 2017). Haiti experienced a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in