The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) is call­ing for the ur­gent pro­tec­tion of med­ical fa­cil­i­ties and health ser­vices as vi­o­lence con­tin­ues to es­ca­late across Haiti.

With armed groups tar­get­ing health­care cen­tres, PA­HO said the French-speak­ing Caribbean coun­try’s al­ready frag­ile health­care sys­tem is un­der “un­prece­dent­ed strain, se­vere­ly af­fect­ing ac­cess to es­sen­tial med­ical care”.

It said the sit­u­a­tion in Haiti has be­come in­creas­ing­ly dire, with over 700,000 peo­ple dis­placed due to vi­o­lence.

This month, PA­HO said the Bernard Mevs Hos­pi­tal in Port-au-Prince was par­tial­ly de­stroyed, “fur­ther ex­ac­er­bat­ing the al­ready lim­it­ed health­care ca­pac­i­ty”.

“The at­tack on Bernard Mevs Hos­pi­tal is a trag­ic blow to Haiti’s al­ready frag­ile health­care sys­tem. I am deeply con­cerned about the es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Haiti’s health com­mu­ni­ty,” PA­HO Di­rec­tor Dr. Jar­bas Bar­bosa said.

“Pro­tect­ing health­care fa­cil­i­ties, pa­tients, health work­ers, equip­ment, and med­ical ac­tiv­i­ties is es­sen­tial.”

Pri­or to this, PA­HO said Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders (MSF), a key hu­man­i­tar­i­an part­ner, sus­pend­ed op­er­a­tions in the cap­i­tal for three weeks.

PA­HO said the last re­main­ing pub­lic hos­pi­tal in the Port-au-Prince met­ro­pol­i­tan area ca­pa­ble of han­dling a surge of mass ca­su­al­ties, Hôpi­tal Uni­ver­si­taire La Paix, is “op­er­at­ing un­der im­mense pres­sure, as it strug­gles to man­age a grow­ing num­ber of pa­tients amidst a volatile en­vi­ron­ment”.

It not­ed that in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an law man­dates the pro­tec­tion of health­care work­ers, fa­cil­i­ties, and ser­vices dur­ing con­flicts, en­sur­ing that med­ical care re­mains ac­ces­si­ble to all, re­gard­less of their af­fil­i­a­tions.

“The ris­ing at­tacks on hos­pi­tals and health­care per­son­nel high­light the ur­gent need for these laws to be up­held to safe­guard the lives of both pa­tients and health work­ers,” PA­HO said.

Amidst the vi­o­lence, PA­HO said it is work­ing close­ly with Haiti’s Min­istry of Pub­lic Health and Pop­u­la­tion (MSPP) and oth­er hu­man­i­tar­i­an part­ners to pro­vide sup­port.

In 2024, PA­HO said it de­liv­ered more than 38 tons of es­sen­tial med­i­cines and med­ical sup­plies to sup­port the con­ti­nu­ity of ser­vices in op­er­a­tional health fa­cil­i­ties and fa­cil­i­tat­ed the mo­bi­liza­tion of MSPP mo­bile clin­ics, which have pro­vid­ed over 9,000 con­sul­ta­tions in In­ter­nal­ly Dis­placed Per­sons (IDP) sites.

In ad­di­tion to the on­go­ing vi­o­lence, PA­HO said Haiti ex­pe­ri­enced a resur­gence of cholera in Oc­to­ber 2022, which spread across the coun­try.

Al­though sus­pect­ed cholera cas­es have de­clined na­tion­wide, PA­HO said lo­cal­ized out­breaks con­tin­ue to be re­port­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly in IDP sites, where crowd­ed con­di­tions fa­cil­i­tate the spread of the dis­ease.

“The MSPP, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with PA­HO, re­mains vig­i­lant, main­tain­ing proac­tive sur­veil­lance to pre­vent fur­ther out­breaks of the dis­ease, par­tic­u­lar­ly in IDP sites,” the state­ment said.

PA­HO said it has al­so sup­port­ed wa­ter, san­i­ta­tion, and hy­giene (WASH) ac­tiv­i­ties to pre­vent the spread of cholera.

PA­HO said it has been in­stru­men­tal in sup­port­ing Hôpi­tal Uni­ver­si­taire La Paix, en­abling the hos­pi­tal to treat, free of charge, over 21,000 pa­tients in its emer­gency ser­vices since the be­gin­ning of 2024.

Es­sen­tial med­i­cines and ma­te­ri­als pro­vid­ed by PA­HO have al­so al­lowed the hos­pi­tal to of­fer free care to vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, in­clud­ing preg­nant women and IDPs.

PA­HO said this sup­port has al­so en­abled the hos­pi­tal and oth­er sup­port­ed health fa­cil­i­ties to per­form C-sec­tions at re­duced costs, en­sur­ing es­sen­tial care for those in need.

PA­HO said it con­tin­ues to sup­port Haiti’s health in­fra­struc­ture through the pro­vi­sion of es­sen­tial med­i­cines, train­ing for health work­ers, and fa­cil­i­tat­ing the con­tin­ued op­er­a­tion of crit­i­cal health ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the most af­fect­ed ar­eas.

PA­HO said its re­sponse op­er­a­tions are made pos­si­ble through col­lab­o­ra­tions with part­ners such as the Unit­ed Na­tions Cen­tral Emer­gency Re­sponse Fund (CERF), the Ger­man Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, the Eu­ro­pean Union, and the Unit­ed States Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (US­AID). —WASH­ING­TON (CMC)