The Unit­ed States has de­clared a lev­el four trav­el ad­vi­so­ry sta­tus say­ing this in part be­cause of lim­it­ed ac­cess to health care in the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM)  coun­try.

The US Em­bassy here in a state­ment, said re­cent gang-re­lat­ed at­tacks have tar­get­ed hos­pi­tals and oth­er health care fa­cil­i­ties and that health care and emer­gency med­ical ser­vices are not avail­able in many parts of Haiti.

“There are sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges in ob­tain­ing ad­e­quate health­care or med­ical evac­u­a­tion due to the degra­da­tion of pub­lic health and med­ical in­fra­struc­ture. This in­creas­es the risk of dis­eases spread­ing,” the Em­bassy warned.

It said the Lev­el Four De­part­ment of State’s Trav­el Ad­vi­so­ry for Haiti is in­tend­ed al­so to dis­cour­age Amer­i­can cit­i­zens from trav­el­ling to the coun­try.

“Med­ical fa­cil­i­ties in Haiti, in­clud­ing am­bu­lance ser­vices, are hard to find and low qual­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly out­side the cap­i­tal. Pa­tients must cov­er all ex­pens­es for life-threat­en­ing emer­gen­cies that re­quire evac­u­a­tion by air am­bu­lance to a lo­ca­tion out­side of Haiti,” it added.

The Em­bassy told Amer­i­cans wish­ing to vis­it Haiti still that they must make sure their health in­sur­ance pro­vides cov­er­age abroad since the Em­bassy does not pay med­ical bills.

“US Medicare and Med­ic­aid do not pro­vide you with cov­er­age abroad. Hos­pi­tals and doc­tors in Haiti do not ac­cept US health in­sur­ance and usu­al­ly re­quire full pay­ment be­fore pro­vid­ing ser­vices.

“The fi­nal cost of treat­ment is of­ten much high­er than ini­tial cost es­ti­mates. Med­ical fa­cil­i­ties usu­al­ly ask for full pay­ment be­fore dis­charg­ing pa­tients. We strong­ly rec­om­mend sup­ple­men­tal in­sur­ance to cov­er med­ical evac­u­a­tion.”

The Em­bassy is urg­ing Amer­i­cans not to trav­el to Haiti, where crim­i­nal gangs are seek­ing to over­throw the gov­ern­ment since the as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se in 2021.

“The US Em­bassy Port-au-Prince urges US cit­i­zens in Haiti to leave by au­tho­rised com­mer­cial trans­porta­tion as soon as they feel it is safe to do so,”  adding “if you are in Haiti, make plans to leave Haiti as soon as safe­ly pos­si­ble”.

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, Mar 24, CMC

CMC/ah/ir/2025