In February 2016 BHI broke ground in Fond des Blancs, Haiti on a state-of-the-art Surgical Center equipped with three operating rooms, a ten bed pre-operative and post-anesthesia care unit, and ambulatory facilities. This new Surgical Center serves as the only fully functional advanced surgical facility for 2.3 million people living in Haiti’s Southern Peninsula. Prior to the construction of the Surgical Center, St. Boniface’s general surgery and gynecology team shared a single operating room where, often faced with more than one urgent case they had to make a decision: who would live and who would die given the lack of operating rooms to accommodate the volume of emergent cases.

To ensure the surgical teams can provide the highest quality care, BHI collaborated with several Boston based medical institutions to plan and equip the new facility with wall-mounted oxygen, fully stocked operating rooms replete with surgical instruments, and, as well as equipment and monitors for laparoscopic surgery. Having three fully stocked and functional rooms available meant that operating teams could work simultaneously, with a higher degree of infection control, and have time to train Haitian surgical residents. The new building provides more than operating space, with a floor dedicated to administrative offices, an expanded pharmacy, and on-call rooms.

After one year and six months of construction, St Boniface opened the 13,000 square foot, two story, Surgical Center. In the process, BHI employed and trained local workers in masonry, electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, and general labor. Three surgeons and two Haitian surgeons-in-training rotating from hospitals across Haiti have the tools and equipment available to provide 24/7 care. Today, the St. Boniface Surgical Center performs more than 300 surgeries every month, a third of which are life-saving C-sections.