Violence, Mortality and Access to Healthcare in Martissant and Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince
MSF has been working in Martissant, a slum in the heart of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s beleaguered capital, since December 2006. The medical team has an emergency room there where they stabilise patients who have been caught up in the violence between different armed groups in the city and refer others to hospitals elsewhere for surgery. Mobile clinics also provide medical aid in different locations of the slum.
Patients wait at a MSF medical facility in Cité Soleil. Haiti, 2007. Photo by Cristina De Middel
In August 2007, MSF carried out two surveys on Violence, Mortality and Access to Healthcare in Martissant and the slums of Cité Soleil, also in Port-au-Prince, with the aim of understanding the impact of violence on these populations. Released in March 2008, the results confirmed that violence is the first cause of mortality in the slums. You can read the reports below:
Today MSF is the only organisation providing healthcare to the population of Martissant. As we have already highlighted to the international community and the Government of Haiti, a larger response is necessary to assist a population that has been left alone to cope in a violent environment. Public health services must re-engage in the area, at least to provide basic primary healthcare.
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MSF has worked in Haiti since 1991, running several programmes offering support to state-run health facilities and responding to emergencies (cyclones, floods). MSF’s activities are currently concentrated in the capital, Port-au-Prince, providing a response to emergencies mainly linked to the violence affecting the city over the last few years. MSF offers specialised health care for trauma victims – at the La Trinité hospital and in the rehabilitation centre for trauma victims (Pacot) – and for women victims of sexual violence. MSF also answers to obstetric emergencies in the Jude Anne hospital, in the Delmas district. In the poorer district of Martissant, MSF offers the population basic and emergency health care. All health care in MSF facilities is offered to patients free of charge.