Urgent need of medical supplies in Haiti as extreme violence isolates people in need

While supply is becoming scarcer for MSF and other medical organisations, people face urgent medical and humanitarian needs. Those with chronic illnesses, such as tuberculosis and HIV, are at high risk of their conditions worsening due to lack of access to medical services and lifesaving medications. Unsanitary conditions in the numerous displacement sites spread across Port-au-Prince heighten the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera.

The MSF hospital in Carrefour, which opened in March in response to the increased violence, was initially stocked for six months, however the hospital’s supplies have dwindled rapidly due to the surge in the number of patients.

“In this context, everything becomes a challenge. Even buying paper for medical reports is a big problem these days,” says Jean Baptiste Goasglas, MSF project coordinator.

Across all MSF projects in the country during March and April this year, our teams provided 9,025 outpatient consultations, treated 4,966 urgent cases, including 869 bullet-wounded patients and 742 victims of traffic accidents. We also admitted 99 severely burned patients at the Tabarre hospital, half of whom were children.

In the current state of emergency, as hospitals continue to close their doors and reduce services, we urge the authorities to ease the custom processes and ask all parties to facilitate the safe transportation of material to medical facilities in order to treat patients.