On Wednesday, July 29, 2016, Ambassador Peter Mulrean, accompanied by USAID Mission Director Jene Thomas, and a team of experts from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), visited St. Boniface Hospital (HSB), in Fond-des-Blancs, South Department. During their visit, they met with the President and CEO of St. Boniface Haiti Foundation, Conor Shapiro, and the Director of the hospital, Dr. Inobert Pierre. The hospital offers primary health care, community heath and vaccination, maternal, neonatal and child care, rehabilitation for spinal cord injury, general surgery, dental care, eye care, HIV/AIDS and TB services.
After the 2010 earthquake, the Haitian Ministry of Health (MSPP) asked St. Boniface Hospital to open a national center for spinal cord injury (SCI) treatment. The U.S. government, through USAID’s American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) program, has worked closely with the hospital since then, and with $1 million of funding has built the first national program to deliver comprehensive clinical and rehabilitative care to SCI victims in Haiti.
The ASHA program has also supported the construction and rehabilitation of many of the St. Boniface hospital facilities. Almost $1.5 million has been invested since 2010 in the construction of a new surgical ward, a TB isolation ward, a training facility, a power station, and a medical depot, as well as the overall renovation of the facilities. Additionally, USAID’s Maternal and Child Survival Program supports HSB work to train and develop a health provider work force that is equipped to effectively provide high impact reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services.
Since 2011, the U.S. Government, through the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) and with funding from the PEPFAR program, has invested almost $1.9 million in St. Boniface Hospital to support services for HIV care and treatment, HIV testing and counseling, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and community outreach to ensure patients stay on their HIV treatment.
The U.S. Government, through CDC PEPFAR and USAID programs, continues to support the Haiti health sector, and is proud of its collaboration with St. Boniface Hospital, which has provided necessary and crucial health care to 6,000 patients monthly in Fond-des-Blancs. Hopital St. Boniface has a staff of more than 200, 98% of which are Haitians.
