Dear Friends, It was a particular pleasure for Konbit Sante to witness the inauguration of the beautiful new USAID-funded pediatric facility at the Justinian University Hospital last week. Konbit Sante has supported the pediatric service’s efforts to improve the quality of care for the past 15 years, including: maintaining salaries for key personnel; setting up systems to assure that essential medicines, supplies and equipment are available when needed; reviewing mortality outcomes every month to identify what can be done to prevent them in the future, reviewing difficult cases and providing trainings on how to address issues that impact the successful care of patients. We have reported before that the hard work of the pediatric staff, in close collaboration with Konbit Sante volunteers and staff had resulted in a 50% decrease of the death rate of neonates in the service, for the past several years. Facilities like this are built in the hope that it will lead to improvements in care. The community of patients who rely on this hospital certainly deserve to receive care in a clean and spacious facility. In this case, we believe that this department truly deserves the investment in a new facility because they have been engaged in improving the quality of care for a long time already. Dr. Charles, the chief of the pediatric service expressed his gratitude to us for all of the many ways that Konbit Sante has provided the service for these past many years, saying that “you can see the fingerprint of Konbit Sante everywhere in the pediatric unit, and the partnership has had a positive impact from the intangible to the visible…” To him, the new facility is a very tangible outgrowth of our work together. He is thrilled to now be occupying “the strongest and most modern building among public hospitals in Haiti”, and notes that “a safe and clean environment and good infrastructure is a prerequisite to quality care.”
Konbit Sante will be supporting the pediatric service in their new space to continue help them cut that mortality rate in half again, which is the goal.
Congratulations to the Cap Haitien community, the Justinian University Hospital, and the pediatric service. We were happy to celebrate this day with you and look forward to the next part of the journey together! |
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