A common goal of HAS Haiti and Partners in Health, Haiti:
This mother and her child shown here are survivors in 2011, when they might not have survived a decade earlier. Mom is recovering from peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM), new heart failure associated with pregnancy. When mom survives, so do her babies have a much better chance for good health. Haiti appears to have the highest incidence of PPCM in the world. At HAS Haiti, we have seen the mortality rate from this disease drop by 300 % (from over 50 % to less than 15 %) and the recovery rates go up by 800 % (from less than 5 % to over 35 %). This progress is because of better diagnosis and treatment resulting from greater understanding of PPCM. We still have a long ways to go.
Recently, Owen Robinson, Project Manager for a new hospital in the Artibonite River Valley at Mirebalais, expressed gratefulness that HAS Haiti and Partners in Health (Zanmi Lasante) are both working towards using “our limited resources as effectively as possible and promoting the best possible health outcomes for all of those whom we collectively serve.” Owen also said, “Hospital Albert Schweitzer and its leaders have been close friends and colleagues of Partners in Health for many years; we are constantly inspired by your many decades of high-quality service to rural Haiti and are grateful for the ongoing partnership we enjoy in pursuing our common mission.”
It is great to have this partnership. If Haiti is to experience continuation of the process of lowering the maternal mortality rate and increasing the survival of children, we need more progress in partnerships that help to build health care for and by the Haitian people.
