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PORT-AU-PRINCE—Haiti is a beautiful Caribbean island with the best beaches
and temperatures in the world. It is, however, the
poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, plagued by
violence, hunger, extreme poverty, disease, high
unemployment rates, low life-expectancy averages and
crumbling health and educational systems. Haiti’s
history is filled with turmoil and unrest. With the
intensifying sociopolitical crisis—worsened by the same
inflation from soaring oil and food prices that now
whips both developed and Third World nations alike—the
country still struggles to survive.
The
Haitian capital Port-au-Prince has been plagued by
violence since a bloody revolt toppled then-President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, leaving business
establishments empty, scaring away foreign investors and
destabilizing the government.
The
Haitian’s lot
Here’s
what it’s like for poor Haitians. Most Haitian families
live in crowded homes made of cardboard and tin, with no
running water and little or no electricity.
Urban
slums teem with garbage, sewage and people in various
shades of misery. Women and children are always hungry;
there’s never enough food; illness and disease are
common among the children, for whom going to school is a
luxury; more than half of the population of the
country’s 9 million people have no access to drugs, and
only half of the children are vaccinated; gang violence
plagues communities; unemployment ranges from 60 percent
to 70 percent. The minimum wage for those with jobs is
$1.50 a day.
Driven
to the edge
For
years, a growing number of Haiti’s poor have been pushed
beyond endurance by price increases in food staples.
“The
world food prices spiking recently have hit our country
particularly hard. In the past few months, widespread
hunger has led to a rise in violent incidents and street
riots,” said local journalist Jean Phares Jerome.
The cost
of staples like rice, beans, flour and corn has risen
some 50 percent since last year; and Haiti has seen
riots, even killings, over food. Its prime minister was
the first bureaucrat to fall to the crisis sparked by
the surge in commodity prices several weeks ago, forced
out of office by daily street riots.
“Desperation is spreading among the poor Haitians. The
country is rife with street crime, carjacking and even
kidnapping because people are desperately hungry, so the
Haitian government should do something about it,” Jerome
said.
Haitian
police and UN peacekeeping forces have registered more
than 150 kidnap-for-ransom cases since the start of
2008. For the whole of 2007, at least 237 abductions
were listed.
The food
crisis in Haiti is so extreme it forces people to rely
on cakes made of an edible clay as a main food source to
relieve hunger, Jerome said.
Eating
the mud cookies is a traditional food taken only by
pregnant women and children; they believe it is a good
source of calcium, he said.
In
response to the violent protests that swept across Haiti
since 2004, major cities, especially capital
Port-au-Prince, are patrolled in part by the UN
peacekeeping force of more than 9,000 soldiers and
police from 20 countries.
“There
is, in fact, extreme violence in some parts of Haiti. We
have had almost a nonstop presence in urban slum areas
where violent gangs are operating. If the situation is
not stable, it is really difficult to have a stable
government,” said Mona Afifi, public information officer
of the UN peacekeeping mission, known as Minustah.
Children
the hardest hit
Aid
workers say the social and economic situation is
particularly hard on children, some of whom are
abandoned by their parents and either put in orphanages
or left to live on the streets.
“Due to
the widespread poverty, economic turmoil and chaos in
the streets, these orphans or abandoned children are
also fighting for survival,” said Frante Andrisse, a
health worker of We Can Build an Orphanage, a
nongovernment organization funded by American and
Canadian businessmen. The orphanage, located in Jacmel,
Haiti, is home to children left orphaned, alone and
infected with HIV/AIDS.
Andrisse
said the orphanage houses 13 children ages two months to
seven years old who are in need of basic needs like
food, shelter and a first-line treatment of an
antiretroviral.
According to the Unicef 2008 report, an estimated 17,000
children are living with HIV/AIDS in Haiti, and only 300
have access to antiretroviral therapy.
“The
situation of children in Haiti remains tenuous, largely
due to chronic poverty and a history of violence linked
to political instability. Haiti continues to be
characterized by inadequate primary health care and
limited access to nutrition services,” said Dr. Teresa
de la Torre, Unicef-Haiti’s chief of Health and
Nutrition.
Citing
the 2008 Unicef Report, de la Torre said Haiti has among
the worst indicators in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In fact, only 33 percent of children under one have been
completely vaccinated against preventable diseases.
“It’s a
very bad situation. But we are optimistic that the
situation will get better if only coordination and
monitoring of programs in response to the nation’s
current food crisis will improve,” de la Torre said.
For
2008, Unicef is addressing the basic health needs of
11,500 children suffering moderate and severe
malnutrition; and vaccinate, if necessary, 50,000
under-five children in affected areas.
Health
system on the brink of collapse?
With
food prices on the rise in Haiti and social unrest in
the impoverished nation growing, health workers,
medicines and other health supplies remain in short
supply.
According to the World Health Organization, Haiti ranks
last in the Western Hemisphere. Economic instability has
limited any growth in this area. Per capita, Haiti
spends about $83 annually on health care. There are 25
physicians and 11 nurses per 100,000 population.
Only
one-fourth of births are attended by a skilled health
professional. Most rural areas have no access to health
care, making residents susceptible to otherwise
treatable diseases.
In the
coastal town of Jacmel, some two hours’ drive from
Port-au-Prince, government health workers are struggling
to improve the desperate health situation.
“The
health system is very weak here. The only hospital here
is no longer working because of lack of doctors, absence
of electricity, not enough medicine, and, at the same
time, people can no longer afford to come for
treatment,” said Dr. Deslouches Gaston, director of
Haiti Health Services in Jacmel town.
Gaston
said the only public hospital, St. Michel Hospital,
located in Jacmel, is serving 500,000 people in this
town. But the hospital has literally no electricity, no
potable water, no functioning ambulance and not enough
doctors or health workers.
In fact,
Gaston said the last surgery conducted here was
performed way back in 2004, as the hospital now gets its
power only from a small generator that occasionally
conks out.
The
maternal mortality rate here is 630 to 1,000 deaths per
100,000 live births. The leading causes of death among
children include diarrheal diseases, acute respiratory
infections and malnutrition. HIV, TB, malaria and dengue
fever rates are the worst and contribute to the low life
expectancy and misery of the people of Haiti.
Patients
are often very sick when they come to the hospital, and
many can’t afford the basic tests and medicines urgently
required by their condition, Gaston adds.
“The
health system is not really efficient in Haiti at the
moment. I know it is in bad state, but we are
coordinating with the Health Minister’s Office to do
something about this because we are, right now,
literally in darkness,” Gaston lamented.
Asked
about the poor access to health of people in Haiti, the
minister for Public Health and Population, Dr. Robert
Auguste, said: “We are still dealing with a very
difficult situation in terms of providing health care to
the people. But we are coordinating with international
donors and organizations to improve Haiti’s health
system.”
He then
sought understanding for the context of this deep,
widespread misery: Haiti, he said, has lived with “more
than 20 years with disorder, and we are starting to
build our nation,” and then adds, “I can tell you it is
much better now.”
Minister
Auguste also sought to focus attention on the alarming
brain drain of skilled health workers, as more and more
of them seek better jobs and lives abroad.
He
lamented that decades of dictatorship and political
turmoil forced thousands of skilled Haitians, including
doctors and nurses, to escape a country that desperately
needs them, for the safer and more prosperous shores of
Canada, the US and Europe.
He said
Cuba has been offering massive medical assistance in
terms of medicine and doctors to Haiti since 1998 to
address access to health care. Cuba has sent 2,500
doctors since 1998 to make up for the absence of Haitian
doctors and health-care workers.
“Should
our government stabilize, we are optimistic that there
will be more health-care centers, the maternal and
infant mortality will decrease, HIV/AIDS will be under
control, malaria will be eradicated and the overall
health system in Haiti will be better,” assured Minister
Auguste.
Hope for
Haiti
Many
still believe that for this poor country, with the
strategic help of the international community, there is
a way out.
“While
the global food crisis is devastating the well-being of
Haitians, causing riots and acute hunger, the Haitian
government must continue to do something to improve
local food production, employment and investing in
health care,” said Guy Polynice, a resident of Jacmel
town.
Polynice,
a Haitian and a retired businessman, has been helping
Jacmel secure electricity through personal funds and
donor solicitations abroad. The town plans to set up a
small power plant here to serve a very small percentage
of the population.
While
some residents are optimistic about the future of Haiti,
the UN recognizes that the country is somehow making
significant progress toward political, economic and
social stability in the past four years. “However, real
progress will also require urgent support from donors,
including in-kind contributions and funds to help fill
short-term needs and the requirements of ongoing
programs,” said the UN Secretary General’s spokesperson,
Marie Okabe, in a statement.
The UN
sees the country “remaining in an extremely precarious
economic and humanitarian situation unless it receives
an urgent injection of funds to widen emergency feeding
operations, extend existing job programs and jump-start
agricultural activity.”
Meanwhile, the HIV-stricken orphan, the starving farmer
and the poor woman hounded by street gangs all live each
day on the edge, wondering if a sudden death would be
preferable to the desperation of living in an unhealed
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