Haiti: Hurricane Matthew Relief Effort
Strengthening the CORE Project: March 1 – July 12, 2017
August 05, 2017
Dr. Patrick Dupont
Summary of Activities
Since our first involvement in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake, Real Medicine Foundation (RMF) has focused our efforts on strengthening existing facilities that wish to offer quality services to less fortunate groups. First, we teamed up with CDTI Hospital in the post-earthquake emergency phase, and we later promoted the idea of public/private hospital consortium with a strong and organized social component. The hospital consortium project, linking 4 major private facilities, became the second healthcare project green lighted by the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) after the Mirebalais Hospital.
Since sufficient funding was never reached to implement the consortium, RMF chose to concentrate on establishing a flagship for this model, as we still believe that stronger involvement of the private sector, through a comprehensive and organized network of private facilities offering a socially conscious conduit for needy population groups, is essential to achieving significant improvement of Haiti’s global health care and providing greater access to secondary and tertiary care by leveraging core competencies and reinforcing the public system’s struggling structures.
Although we are not abandoning this larger vision, for the past 4 years, we have centered our activities around a specific need identified in the aftermath of the January 2010 disaster and throughout the first 2 years afterwards, where fractures and other limb trauma complications became a recurring issue. Real Medicine Foundation implemented an orthopedic surgical program to treat pediatric patients with such problems, and the program has evolved to include congenital and acquired limb deformities. We treat children and young adults from the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, but also from very remote provincial towns in the southern and northern departments of the country.
Thus far, in installments over a 4-year period, 60 children have received specialized elective surgery, including preoperative biological and imaging screening, as well as follow-up visits, radiographic evaluation, and wound dressings to treat their conditions. Their complete treatment from screening to final healing has been made possible at a mere fraction of what these procedures would cost, allowing these children to be rehabilitated in such a way that their own future and contribution to society can be greatly improved.
Now with the help of a dedicated surgical team; a responsible and socially conscious hospital, Centre Hospitalier Sainte Marie (CHSM), which we have recently partnered with; and the funding from LDS Charities, RMF has been able to implement a larger community outreach project, which we believe can greatly impact improved access to quality care and be a stepping stone towards a sustainable model of social involvement of the private healthcare sector for the benefit of all.

Results &
ACCOMPLISHMENTS

New Partner Facility
Beginning Implementation
Although we believe that CDTI Hospital (our first partner facility in Haiti) should still be a major component of our envisioned hospital consortium, its involvement remains difficult due to the hospital’s current condition and funding. RMF has found and partnered with another privately-owned hospital with like-minded philosophy: Centre Hospitalier Sainte Marie (CHSM). CHSM is an already functioning hospital and a potential actor in our envisioned network. The implementation of the CORE project has started in late April 2017, with the launch of the 4th surgical program session and of the 1st educational program, while preparing for subvention of the family and emergency care components.

Planned Structure of CORE Project
Strengthening the Project
With primary funding pledged to RMF’s activities in Haiti after Hurricane Mathew’s destructive path through the southern portion of the country in 2016, we decided to capitalize on our goals as well as CHSM’s vision and care programs to implement a Community Outreach and Rehabilitation Effort (CORE) project, with 6 major components: providing long-term educational activities, improving surgical procedures, increasing access to emergency care, subsidizing treatment of at-risk/low income families, implementing fast and pre-organized disaster response, and improving regular outreach missions with mobile clinics.

Educational Component
The ADYS Program
The ADYS program (Ale Di Yo Sa, literally translated “Go Tell Them This”) is the result of a partnership established between RMF and the SPEC Institute, which aims to supplement the RMF-CHSM CORE project in Haiti with a community and preventive health component. During this first phase, the program will concentrate on the development of health education activities in 5 targeted communes: Carrefour, Gressier, Léogane, Petit-Goâve and Les Cayes. This component has been launched strategically at the beginning of the 2017 hurricane season to prepare for its potentially disastrous effects. This first educational program of the CORE project will be a 6-month mission in selected southern locations.

Surgical Component
Selection of Patients
The 4th installment of the orthopedic surgical program has been launched in April 2017, and selection of the first
10 patients of the targeted 60 patients were finalized mid-June. 9 children and 1 adult are part of this first group
treated between June and July at the Centre Hospitalier Sainte Marie (CHSM). Screening of the next 10 patients is currently underway, and already 5 additional patients have been selected for surgery in August.

Medical Equipment Allocation for CHSM
Improving Care for Families
As previously mentioned in our concept note and October 2016 report, we allocated some of the funding pledged to RMF to two aspects of the emergency care component. The first has included acquisition of surgical equipment so that we will be able to adequately implement treatments that will be given to patients sponsored by Real Medicine Foundation. Specialized equipment provided includes external fixator sets and Stryker power tools to allow Centre Hospitalier Sainte Marie (CHSM) to later implement surgical treatment of the emergency and family care components of the CORE project and basic life support and acute cardiac life support equipment for CHSM’s first ambulance, to serve and benefit the subsidized families and individuals covered by RMF’s sponsorship.

More
Photos
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Numbers
Served
9 children and 1 adult
are part of this first group
treated between June and July at the Centre Hospitalier Sainte Marie (CHSM).


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