The women we have seen in our mobile clinics in recent months are often survivors of violence, including rape. As a doctor and as a woman, I can tell that many are afraid to talk about it, because the threat is still in the community. Social stigma can also make survivors reluctant to come forward, because they do not want their families and neighbours to know what happened to them. We do everything we can to make survivors feel safe when they confide in us, but many are already pregnant or have a sexually transmitted infection at that point. We accompany them to our main clinic for sexual violence.
For years, health professionals in Haiti have been working in a difficult environment. The country’s deepening political and economic crises have left medical facilities with few resources. Our healthcare system is falling apart.
Like other professionals, healthcare workers have been individually targeted by violence as the situation has worsened. Doctors and nurses have left the country for the United States and elsewhere, including friends and colleagues. Now there aren’t many of us left.
The violence is also preventing patients and staff from reaching medical facilities on a daily basis. Some hospitals, such as Haiti’s State University Hospital, cannot currently function. Another university hospital, Saint-François de Sales, has been completely vandalised and young doctors can no longer complete their training there. The only public university hospital still in operation is La Paix, but it is often overloaded and lacking in resources. Tragically, more women with high-risk pregnancies may die as a result.
Fonte original msf.org
