Healthcare in Haiti – Tale from the indicators


Aren’t we tired of hearing that Haiti is the poorest country of the western hemisphere? Based on what? We’d say? What is so different between Haiti and Jamaica or between Haiti and Dominican Republic? Aren’t we all poor island countries? Those who keep saying that are just ignorant or worst racist. They simply hate us; they hate our illustrious history. Those are typical Haitian reactions, right? A friend of mind, the poet Danielle George, has even written a poem about this topic:


Poem for the Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere


Oh poorest country, this is not your name.
You should be called beacon, and flame,


almond and bougainvillea, garden
and green mountain, villa and hut,


little girl with red ribbons in her hair,
books-under-arm, charmed by the light


of morning, charcoal seller in black skirt,
encircled by dead trees.


You, country, are the businessman
and the eager young man, the grandfather


at the gate, at the crossroads
with the flashlight, with the light,


with the light.


(Copied from the Bill Moyers Journal – accessed on January 3, 2012 http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01222010/profile3.html)


Well, appearance is deceiving, what you need to consider is numbers. They don’t lie, most of the time. Indicators such as per capita rate or gross domestic product give a good idea of the economic standing of a country. Similarly, for healthcare infrastructures, infant mortality rate, life expectancy, and maternal mortality ratio, say a lot about a country’s standing. For example, in the slide below, compared to the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, and USA, Haiti has the worst rates for all three health indicators.



 









As you can see in the table above, in 2009, Haiti’s infant mortality rate is more than twice as high as the Dominican Republic’s and 14 times as high as Cuba’s. Maternal mortality ratio presents a similar picture: Haiti’s ratio is three times as high as DR’s and five times as high as Cuba’s.

Some of our goals should be to improve those indicators, little by little, until our stats become comparable to those from the other countries of the Americas.

2 comments:

  1. These statistics are those officially reported, but the reality is worse than that in Haiti. Absence of the basics in terms of infrastructure, trained personnel, medical supplies, referral system, national framework for pregnancy and delivery management strategies, enough to give you an idea and the reasons why those numbers are so high. We need to deeply analyze and understand where to allocate what type of resources to tackle the problems. But first it has to be a national priority, not a government initiative, but the society in its entirety has to see the importance of giving access to quality healthcare to the majority, especially pregnant women.

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  2. Yes, it has to be a national priority. Unfortunately, as of now, even the government cannot provide accessible quality care due to lack of resources. Only some ONGs, with funding aimed at subsidizing healthcare cost, are making it possible to some areas of the country.

    It must also be a government initiative, just so we can start somewhere. The actual gvt has not even talked about universal health coverage. It's not on their radar screen. MSPP is doing "des etats generaux", a data gathering campaign, so that they can come up with a 20/20 plan. Will universal coverage part of that plan? We'll see.

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