SPECIAL
PROGRAMS
Fish for dinner, a visit from her daughter and a clean bill of cervical health make it a good day for this HHP client in Belle Anse.
EDE TÈT NOU
'Helping Ourselves'
Haiti has one of the world’s highest cervical cancer rates, but it doesn't have to. This slow-developing disease, which affects women in their prime, is perfectly preventable if we can reach them.
Haitian women also carry a high burden of breast cancer, lacking a system to diagnose and treat the disease.
Ede Tèt Nou takes the fight against these cancers to the countryside, bringing HPV self-testing and self-breast exams to 1600 rural women.
All 1600 women were screened using the HPV self-test. The results showed an astonishing rate of positive high-risk cases in some pockets of our region -- 37.2%, with an overall rate of 23 percent. This is the highest rate of positive cases in Haiti so far collected.
HHP's Nurse Musak is treating the positive women with thermocoagulation, a new technology. Women with suspicious breast masses are examined with ultrasound by our partner doctors in the region, and those needing a higher level of care are referred to our partner facilities in Port-au-Prince.
Our network of community health workers is key to this effort, dispelling fears about women's cancers as trusted neighbors rather than foreign strangers.
We are ever grateful to the Conservation, Food and Health Foundation and Women International Leaders of Greater Philadelphia, whose generous support made this program possible.
Today. Ede Tèt Nou continues to use visual inspection with acetic acid and thermocoagulation as we search for funds to continue to bring the highest standard of care possible, the HPV self-test, to the women of our region.
Dr. Daniel Antoine sets the broken arm of a man struck by a motorcycle near the Marjofre clinic.
ANN BAY LAVI JARET
'Give Life a Helping Hand'
Ann Bay Lavi Jaret, our traditional birth attendant training program, grew from the knowledge that many women in our community prefer to give birth at home with traditional birth attendants, or matwòn.
This is concerning because many matwòn lack the equipment and training to deal with high risk pregnancies. About one in every 80 Haitian women in Haiti will die from childbirth or pregnancy-related causes, the highest mortality rate in the Western hemisphere, because the mountainous terrain, poor roads and distance from a hospital or clinic present barriers to skilled care.
Then, too, matwòn are respected members of the community who women know will treat them with dignity. They preside over 70% of births in our region. Knowing this, Ann Bay Lavi Jaret trains and works alongside our region's matwòn to assure safe births.
A graduate of Midwives for Haiti, HHP midwife Ruth LaFleur designed the five-month training program for matwòn who don’t read or write. Meeting once a week in groups of six, they discuss principles of hygiene, safe birth practices and how to recognize high-risk situations. Community health workers learn how to promote a culture of health and family
planning .
Ruth makes home visits with the matwònm tii, and tracks their outcomes. The program has successfully trained 18 matwòn and community health workers in three remote regions in our zone over 24 months.
With a grant from Global Force for Healing, Ann Bay Lavi Jaret also provides Covid-19 education, personal protective equipment, hygiene kits and peanut butter as a dietary supplement for expectant mothers and their families.
Fish for dinner, a visit from her daughter and a clean bill of cervical health make it a good day for this HHP client in Belle Anse.
A traditional Haitian midwife shows off he client's newborn delivered safely at home with support from HHP midwife Ruth Lafleur.
High blood pressure is the mot common diagnosis in Southeast haiti. A mother in the remote villag of Invite gets a checkup from HHP medical staff.
WI, MEMN LA
'Yes, I am here'
For reasons not well understood, high blood pressure is the most common diagnosis in our southeast Haiti.
Even in young people, the numbers are often staggering, threatening the entire family structure with the real possibility of death or debilitation of a breadwinner or caregiver.
Dr.Daniel Antoine created Wi Memn La to help communities understand the disease and its impact. He trained our network of community health workers to educate and screen 1,500 people in the most isolated villages. Over 300 of them were hypertensive.
Dr, Antoine followed up with the patients personally, starting them on medication and continuing monthly with further blood pressure checks. Our partner Americares was instrumental to the program, providing the blood pressure meds.
It then falls to our well-established community health workers to make sure patients follow up.
We would love to extend Wi Memn La to more villages in our region. If successful, the program will be used to create an efficient model for reaching rural people with hypertension nationwide.
Can you help?
FANM VANYAN
'Valiant Women'
Women living with HIV are almost five times more likely to develop invasive cervical cancer.
“To save a woman’s life by ensuring that she has access to antiretroviral therapy for HIV, yet to have her die from cervical cancer, is unacceptable,” says UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Shannon Hader. Unfortunately, at this writing, there is no national program to screen or treat women for cervical cancer in Haiti.
Conceived and developed by our clinic staff, Fanm Vanyan connects the international services of HIV/AIDS PEPFAR to women otherwise isolated in the hinterlands of the Haitian Sud-Est.
The program taps a trusted network of village health workers to reach women who are fearful of HIV's stigma and connects them with cervical cancer services in the privacy and safety of their homes. This outreach has become even more needed as political instability and lawlessness throughout Haiti have threatened access to essential healthcare services.
Within three months of its launch, the program found a 67% rate of positives for precancerous cervical changes. Over 200 women have been treated safely and cost-effectively with visual inspections using acetic acid (VIA) for detection and thermocoagulation and electrosurgery (LEEP) for treatment.
The conventional wisdom of first-world healthcare systems is that it's too costly to deliver such life-saving services in places of extreme poverty.
Saving 200 lives and counting, at a cost of $7,000 or $35 per women, Fanm Vanyan proves them wrong.
Please consider a donation to keep our valiant women strong!
HHP's Nurse Musak attends a Fanm Vanyan client in the comfort of her home