Côtes-de-Fer, Haiti

Life is slow in remote Côtes-de Fer, in Haiti’s southeastern coast. Most people live below the international poverty line (just US$1.90 per day), and post-earthquake, international development activities bypassed the area. Malnutrition and food insecurity are widespread. Homes are crowded; children often sleep on the floor. Maternal, neonatal, and under-five mortality rates are high; thousands die of preventable causes. Few babies are delivered in health facilities, and uptake of antenatal and postnatal care is low. Mothers-to-be don’t understand why it matters. Thus, neither they nor their infants receive the care they need.

Healthcare

Healthcare quality has traditionally been poor. Inefficient infrastructure, scarcity of trained health professionals, and lack of essential medical supplies and equipment translate to inadequate services. People rely on public health facilities to provide affordable medicines. Yet poor transportation, inadequate pharmaceutical-product storage facilities, and understaffed pharmacies engender stock-outs. Patients who cannot pay private sector prices may forgo treatment altogether, causing curable illnesses to go untreated.

Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

Healthcare facilities lack clean water, so infection is a risk. In communities where clean water is similarly lacking, it is an uphill battle for families to keep healthy. The situation is compounded by lack of usable latrines and open defecation as a norm, which contaminates community water sources.

Opportunity

Women in Côtes-de-Fer face the challenge of raising healthy, educated children without themselves having basic knowledge, tools, and economic resources. Lack of formal sector work drives women to the less remunerative informal sector. Families are challenged to cover their children’s school costs. Even obtaining nutritious food is hard—yet women-headed families and others at high risk for food insecurity tend not to implement potentially more productive farming practices. Lack of access to resources impedes women’s potential to pull their families out of poverty.

How We Are Responding

CMMB has been making a difference in Haiti since Paluel Flagg first worked here in 1912.  In the Côtes-de-Fer area, as elsewhere across this island nation, we are known as a trusted local partner for health and community development, and we:

• Built the Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan Center for Health and have been managing it since its March 2017 opening.
• Are renovating four local clinics.
• Purchased emergency transport vehicles and linked the transport system to resident women’s groups.
• Provide training to local medical staff, supplemented by workshops and mentoring by volunteer medical professionals.
• Provide the most commonly unavailable essential medicines and refrigerators to pharmacies; support the government to staff every healthcare facility with at least one pharmacist, including housing costs to incentivize retention.
• Ensure that supported healthcare facilities can maintain water, sanitation, and hygiene standards.
• Are working with local agents de santé comunautaire polyvalents (ASCPs; community health workers), promoting antenatal and postnatal care, testing for and treating common diseases, and teaching families health basics.
• Upgraded community plumbing infrastructure; supported community-led campaigns to eliminate open defecation, showing families how to construct and maintain latrines.
• Teach women basic business skills and entrepreneurship; support them in village savings and loan associations and agricultural activities. This helps to increase the share of household income controlled by women, both through their own earnings and by providing cash transfers.

Access to vaccines mean that she’ll have a chance to grow up healthy and strong.

Fedeline LOVES Greta, her family’s goat. Greta gives the family a much needed source of nutrition and also adds to her family's income.

Community Health Worker, Guibert Ramilus, teaches mothers the health benefits of giving iron to their children.

Lisena graduated from Mother’s Club empowered and confident in her abilities as a mother and provider.

In Côtes-de-Fer, the new hospital is a dream come true, bringing quality care to nearly 50,000 residents.

Thanks to a MUSO loan, Estapha Guerline was able to open a small business selling sundries in the market.