Health response to the earthquake in Haiti, January 2010

Health response to the earthquake in Haiti January 2010PROMESS, the central pharmaceutical warehouse, remained mostly intact. Fortunately,its stock had been replenished at the end of 2009.Impact on health personnelThe earthquake did not spare Ministry of Health personnel. Very high but unconfirmedestimates of losses were circulated and occasionally published. These figureswere shown to be inaccurate by a retrospective survey on the impact of the earthquakeon the health staff carried out two months after the impact by the Human ServicesDirectorate of the Ministry of Health (MSPP 2010a).In this survey, a census was conducted in the three affected departments. Of 6,812 employees,5,879 health workers (86%) were identified based on questionnaires sent toall Ministry of Health institutions. Of the 5,879, 61 were reported killed; 59 of thesewere in West Department, where the capital is located. These figures include Ministryemployees only. They do not cover students (medical or nursing), whose mortality waspresumably higher due to the collapse of the nursing school, among other causes. 28The reasons for the relatively low mortality figure are simple: as mentioned earlier, atthe time of the earthquake, office workers had mainly left their workplaces and wereon their way home.Most practicing doctors divide their working time between official duties in a publicfacility and private practice. This is a life necessity given the meager and irregular28 The nursing school at Lumière University—one of three official nursing schools in the country—was reduced to rubble,killing an estimated 150 students (UNFPA 2010).Local nursing staff at field hospital32Photo: PAHO/WHO, Victor Ariscain