Haiti's Healthcare Nears Collapse as Medicine Dwindles, Gangs Attack Hospitals & Ports Stay Shut

Port-Au-Prince: On a recent morning at a hospital in heart of gang territory in Haiti’s capital, a woman began convulsing before her body went limp as a doctor and two nurses raced to save her.

y stuck electrodes to her chest and flipped on an oxygen machine while keeping ir eyes on a computer screen that reflected a dangerously low oxygen level of 84%.

No one knew what was wrong with her.

Even more worrisome, Doctors Without Borders hospital in Cite Soleil slum was running low on key medicine to treat convulsions.

“ medication she really needs, we barely have,” said Dr. Rachel Lavigne, a physician with medical aid group.

It’s a familiar scene repeated daily at hospitals and clinics across Port-au-Prince, where life-saving medication and equipment is dwindling or altoger absent as brutal gangs tighten ir grip on capital and beyond. y have blocked ros, forced closure of main international airport in early March and paralyzed operations at country’s largest seaport, where containers filled with key supplies remain stuck.

“Everything is crashing,” Lavigne said.

Haiti’s health system has long been fragile, but it’s now nearing total collapse after gangs launched coordinated attacks on Feb. 29, targeting critical infrastructure in capital and beyond.

violence has forced several medical institutions and dialysis centers to close, including Haiti’s largest public hospital. Located in downtown Port-au-Prince, Hospital of State University of Haiti was supposed to reopen on April 1 after closing when attack began, but gangs have infiltrated it.

One of few institutions still operating is Peace University Hospital, located south of shuttered airport. From Feb. 29 to April 15, hospital treated some 200 patients with gunshot wounds, and its beds remain full.

“We urgently need fuel because we operate using generators. Orwise we run risk of closing our doors,” hospital director Dr. Paul Junior Fontilus said in a statement.

More than 2,500 people were killed or wounded across Haiti from January to March, a more than 50% increase compared with same period last year, according to a recent U.N. report.

Even if a hospital is open, sometimes re is little or no medical staff because gang violence erupts daily in Port-au-Prince, forcing doctors and nurses to stay at home or turn around if y encounter blocked ros manned by heavily armed men.

spiraling chaos has left a growing number of patients with cancer, AIDS and or serious illnesses with little to no recourse, with gangs also looting and setting fire to pharmacies in capital’s downtown area.

Doctors Without Borders itself has run out of many medications used to treat diabetes and high blood pressure, and asthma inhalers that help prevent dely attacks are nowhere to be found in capital, Lavigne said.

At Doctors Without Borders hospital, medical staff recently tried to save a boy with a severe asthma attack by giving him oxygen, she said. That didn’t work, and neir did anor of medication. Finally, y ended up injecting him with renaline, which is used in emergencies to treat anaphylactic shock.

“We improvise and we do our best for people here,” Lavigne said.

People’s health is worsening because daily medication y need for ir chronic conditions is not available, warned Doctors Without Borders project coordinator Jacob Burns.

“It becomes acute and n y run out of options,” he said. “For certain people, re are very, very few options right now.”

Despite pressing need for medical care, Doctors Without Borders hospital in Cite Soleil has been forced to cut number of outpatients it treats daily from 150 to 50, Burns said, though all emergencies are attended to.

Scores of people line up outside hospital each day and risk being shot by gang members who control area as y await medical care.

Everyone is allowed to enter hospital compound, but medical staff set up a triage to determine which 50 people will be seen. Those with less urgent needs are asked to return anor day, Burns said.

On Friday morning, 51-year-old Jean Marc Baptiste shuffled into emergency room with a bloody bandage on his right hand. He said police in an armored vehicle shot him previous day as he was collecting wood to sell as kindling in an area controlled by gangs.

Once inside, nurses removed bandage to reveal a gaping wound in his thumb as he cried out in pain. Lavigne told him he needed a plastic surgeon, which hospital does not have, and ordered X-rays to ensure re was no fracture.

On average, Cite Soleil hospital sees three wounded people a day, but sometimes it’s up to 14 now, staff said.

Recently, five people wounded by bullets arrived at hospital after spending all night inside a public bus that couldn’t move because of heavy gunfire, Burns said.

“Cite Soleil was long epicenter of violence,” he said. “And now violence is so widespre that it’s become a problem for everyone.”