On Friday, Michelle Chouinard, who heads the mission of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Haiti has announced that MSF would close two important hospitals in the Haitian capital that had been opened by the NGO in 2010, following the earthquake. " Both were intended to be temporary but were extended because of the medical needs in the impoverished country. Given that the situation in Haiti is still difficult it was a very hard decision," declared Chouinard.

The 176-bed obstetrics hospital in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince will close its doors in the next few days, after the release of some patients. Many poor people in the capital depend on this hospital, which treated (free) about 500 patients a month and where more than 40,000 babies were born.

The 122-bed trauma hospital in Tabarre, which receives a large number of cases of head trauma and fractures related to the use of motorcycles, is expected to close definitively in June 2019. Lety's recall that in 2016, when a strike crippled the country’s public hospitals, the Tabarre facility was the only respite for those unable to afford private care. That year, it treated 15,228 patients in the emergency room and performed 8,088 surgeries.

However, despite these two closures, Doctors Without Borders will continue to manage four clinics in Haiti, "People are saying MSF is leaving. MSF is not leaving," affirmed Michelle Chouinard. MSF will continue to run four clinics in Haiti : the severe-burn center, the 24-hour sexual violence center, the 24-hour emergency clinic in a Port-au-Prince slum and a facility in Port-a-Piment, which was opened after 2016’s Hurricane Matthew (South), will all remain open.

HL/ HaitiLibre