The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund announced a $1.8 million grant to the Boston-based nonprofit Partners In Health to support its Haitian sister organization Zanmi Lasante in a program that will make long-term, sustainable improvements in the scope and quality of Haiti’s healthcare and medical education sectors. The grant will be used to launch a residency program for family practice physicians and a certification program for auxiliary nurses at the public hospital in St. Marc supported by Partners In Health and Zanmi Lasante.

"The earthquake and cholera outbreak have only heightened the healthcare sector’s challenges," Clinton Bush Haiti Fund CEO Gary Edson explains. "The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund’s three-year grant for Zanmi Lasante’s work is an investment in Haiti’s human capital. It will provide training for critically needed family practice physicians and auxiliary nurses at l’Hôpital Saint Nicolas, the chronically understaffed public hospital serving 220,000 St. Marc residents and, ultimately, the 1.5 million people of the surrounding Artibonite region."

Additionally, Zanmi Lasante will leave a lasting legacy for the nation’s public health system by upgrading and standardizing auxiliary nurse education, creating a first-ever certification program to be replicated by other medical training centers throughout Haiti.

"This grant represents an invaluable investment in the decentralization and long-term, sustainable reconstruction of Haiti’s health system," said Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "It will enable Zanmi Lasante and Partners In Health – working in partnership with Haiti’s Ministry of Health and national medical school – both to improve the quality of care for the people of St. Marc and to train a new generation of healthcare providers to deliver comprehensive, community-based care in even the poorest and most remote places."

HL/ HaitiLibre