In late-April 2020, after a month of low case counts, Haiti’s confirmed number of COVID-19 cases began to rise exponentially in late-April. At the time, Haiti had only 450 COVID-19 beds nationally, for a country of almost 11 million people. Build Health International and our partners recognized that additional emergency infrastructure would be required immediately.

The COVID-19 treatment center at HUM adds 100 COVID-19 beds, with three newly constructed wards and three wards adapted from existing structures on the hospital campus. Each ward has wall-mounted bedside oxygen supplied by central manifolds. The wards are air conditioned and meet the WHO recommendation of 12 air changes per hour using both passive ventilation design and mechanical ventilation. Isolation rooms in the wards enable clinicians to safely perform aerosolizing procedures, such as intubation for mechanical ventilation. BHI also built a covered triage area, sanitation facilities and a staff workroom, and spaces for staff to safely donn and doff PPE. BHI is procuring and shipping critical PPE to HUM to help ensure sufficient supplies to keep staff in the COVID-19 treatment center safe. These shipments include 4000 pairs of exam gloves, 900 N-95 masks, and 10,000 procedure masks to date.

BHI is also working to maximize the hospital’s long-term ability to respond to surges in COVID-19 cases without compromising other clinical services by expanding bedside oxygen outlets to all inpatient beds at 320+ the existing hospital. This will enable any department to quickly be designated a COVID-19 ward, if necessary. At the outset of the project, only approximately 60% of HUM had a direct oxygen connection via wall mounted oxygen at bedside outlets.