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Newsletter
Strengthening Haiti's Health Facilities for Disaster Resilience
Haiti’s health infrastructure faces substantial challenges delivering consistent, inclusive, quality care across the country. A Small Island Developing State with a challenging political context, Haiti has endured extreme consequences from several types of hazard events.
Hospital building in Port-de-Paix, Haiti that was significantly damaged and unsafe after the moderate 2018 M5.9 Port-de-Paix earthquake, illustrating the vulnerability of older health buildings to hazard events. Photo: Janise Rodgers, GHI
Climate change is amplifying the impacts of hazard events. Prior disasters severely stressed the health system, reducing Haitians’ access to quality healthcare and impacting health outcomes. Many healthcare buildings are in poor condition and highly vulnerable to damage from hazard events. Staff frequently lack operational training to keep facilities functional amid patient surges and emergency conditions.
The project aims to strengthen the resilience of Haiti’s health infrastructure by:
conducting assessments of six health facilities, developing facility-level action plans to strengthen functionality of facilities and backup systems in each, followed by initial implementation activities in one facility;
aligning Haiti health infrastructure policies with global standards and national contingency planning; and
strengthening capacity to keep health systems functional in disasters and emergencies, accounting for common types of infrastructure damage and service disruption caused by these events.
The project will target different levels of health infrastructure in Haiti, including 6 specific facilities: two (2) hôpitaux départementaux (major hospitals) or hôpitaux communautaires de référence (community referral hospitals), and four (4) smaller facilities such as centres de santé avec lits (basic health centers with beds) or dispensaries (basic clinics). Assessments at these six facilities will provide data on vulnerability to multiple hazards and climate impacts, infrastructure deficits, gaps in facility maintenance capacities, and opportunities for improvements that will inform the resilience action plans. Two hospital emergency operations plans will be updated. Implementation of some high-priority recommendations from the resilience action plans will take place in one facility.
Data and findings from facility assessments will be applied more broadly by informing policy and implementation recommendations across the nation’s health infrastructure. The project team will review policies related to disaster resilience of health infrastructure, including the national health emergency contingency plan and Civil Protection’s disaster contingency plan, and make recommendations to account for common facility vulnerabilities and to better align the two plans. Training will include addressing facility vulnerabilities and planning to continue delivering essential medical services to bridge over anticipated facility disaster damage and deficiencies. Facility managers, engineers and maintenance staff, and healthcare workers will be trained. Overall, the project will equip Haiti with data, analysis, and training to meet its goal of promoting resilient health infrastructure that supports continuous delivery of medical care during and after emergencies and hazard events.
