The CureCervicalCancer Team Trains Health Care Workers in the Northeast Region of Haiti

Today’s objective was to visit clinic sites where screening activities by CCC/IMC trained healthcare professionals will begin within the next week. The CureCervicalCancer team headed to the Northeast department of Haiti, one of the poorest regions in the country with very limited access to healthcare. The day began shortly after the crack of dawn, when the CCC team headed fifty-three kilometers from our home base in Cap-Haitien to an old city where Haiti first declared their independence, Fort Liberte. We met with the Director of the Ministry of Health for the department and it became clear that there would be significant administrative challenges to overcome. At first we were discouraged to hear of the myriad difficulties in implementing the screening programs in this part of the country, but we quickly reminded ourselves that if it were easy, the women would already have access.

A local woman waiting at the Fort Liberte Hospital

Our next stop was the Fort Liberte Hopsital. Here, the nurses previously trained by CCC/IMC nurse Anne Marie Durosier, are eager to begin serving the women at the Jacobson Family Clinic.

CCC Coordinator, Stephen Morris, in front of the Wanament Hospital

Twenty-two kilometers southeast of Fort Liberte and close to the Haiti-Dominican Republic border is the newly established Phyllis Clinic at the Wanament Hospital in Ouanaminthe. Here we learned that not only have healthcare professionals been recruited and trained to provide see and treat, but three community health workers have been educated about cervical cancer. These three have been given the task of going out into the community to pass on their knowledge and recruit women for screening.

Dr. Jennifer Lang (CCC Medical Director) speaking with the hospital Director at Trou-Du-Nord

Our final visit was to the Hospital Communautaire de Reference de Trou-Du-Nord. Here, the nurses and the hospital gynecologist will be screening and treating the women of this community at the Los Feliz Clinic. All of these clinics currently have existing health programs that serve the women of the community, however previously none of them have had the equipment or resources to screen and treat women with precancerous cervical lesions. We are thrilled that they now have the capability to provide this effective yet simple procedure to the women in the Northeast!