BHI’s Haiti team has been building and maintaining healthcare infrastructure for over a decade. Photo Credit: Nadia Todres
We have been mindful of the timing of this message amidst a great deal of news, and noise. In Haiti, our colleagues, patients, families, and friends are facing challenges filled with unprecedented violence, hunger, missed employment and educational opportunities, and lack of access to the fundamental right to health care. One thing is clear: Build Health International and our partners’ commitment to Haiti. We remain steadfast in our mission to deliver equitable, dignified, quality care for all Haitians.
What makes that possible is our incredible Haitian team. A team developed from rural farmers in the central plateau into a robust skilled labor force specialized in building and maintaining health facilities. Over the last decade, this cohesive team of over 30 project managers, electricians, plumbers, foremen, laborers, and specialists have contributed to more than 60 healthcare infrastructure projects in Haiti – training thousands of clinical specialists, treating millions of patients, and saving countless lives.
Reflecting back on Dr. Paul Farmer’s original vision for the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais (HUM), operated by Zanmi Lasante and Partners In Health, his ability to be audaciously and unyieldingly unreasonable is what enabled the founding of BHI. Most recently at HUM, the BHI Haiti team led a 2,400 solar panel upgrade complete with Tesla Battery packs that will save the hospital over $800,000 annually and allow life-saving operations to run uninterrupted along with the construction of a new diagnostic center including the country’s first public CT scan. HUM has had a tremendous impact on the health care and economic system over the last 10 years. And that is just one example from our hospital partners in the Southern Peninsula to Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitian working across the country to enable equitable healthcare – all facing a resounding threat to the tremendous progress that has been made over the last decade.
The road to health equity cannot be built alone.
Despite the current conditions, the BHI team continues to show up. We provide operational and project support to hospitals where possible, and we stand alongside our many partners on the ground. Sustaining the people, and talent, that make this work possible and their livelihood is essential. And BHI remains committed to this work and our mission – now and in the future.