Haiti: Under chronic stress and in constant fear, health workers strive to save lives

“Medical staff live with chronic stress, fear, depression,” he says as he shows us around the sparsely equipped rooms where patients and care givers await treatment in his hospital. “In addition to the loss of human lives every day, there´s the constant risk we face. This situation affects us deeply.” 

His words speak of a reality faced by many. Six months after the escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Haiti, armed violence persists in the Port-au-Prince metropolitan region, and people in the most affected areas struggle daily with a desperate lack of access to basic services including heath care and drinkable water.

The widespread violence has pushed the health system in some areas to the brink of collapse. Armed attacks and burning and looting of health facilities, together with the lack of the most basic security conditions for staff, forced the closure of some hospitals while many others remain understaffed and damaged. Facilities face an alarming shortage of medical supplies - medicines, blood and oxygen - and many do not have a regular supply of electricity and running water. On occasion, they remain cut off for days, unable to transfer patients or receive supplies due to movement restrictions imposed by armed violence. “You feel powerless, you cannot do anything. You are a doctor, but you lack material, and the hospital is so ill-equipped… Sometimes I cannot contain my tears because it´s my community. They are my brothers, my sisters,” shares Doctor Odans.