As the emergency phase of the response in Haiti winds down, Merlin is ramping up our mobile clinics to meet the needs of thousands of people in rural areas who would otherwise have no access to health care.
Our clinics are based in the Petit Goave area, 42 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, which was also the epicentre of a magnitude 5.9 aftershock on 20 January.
The teams are serving the rural and difficult to access communities of Vallue, Arnoux, Petit Savane, Allegre and Ticoma, where approximately 36,000 people have had very limited access to clinics. Each day they are seeing up to 220 patients, providing much needed health care free of charge in these remote locations.
Lizzy Berryman, Merlin’s Country Health Director in Haiti, says: "On a daily basis, we're treating diarrhoea, skin infections, malaria and anaemia. The clinics are providing essential health care for communities struggling to access health services."
Each mobile clinic is equipped to deliver basic health care and carry essential medicines and supplies, and is staffed with three doctors, five nurses and a team leader. Health educators will also join the clinics to run community sessions on the most important health issues - a key part of helping people avoid illness.
From emergency to recovery
As the focus shifts to our mobile clinics and longer term recovery work, Merlin's tented field hospital will be winding down in April having carried out almost 400 emergency surgeries since opening.
Of the many patients he has seen during his time at the hospital, Merlin's Dr David Southern says he will most remember 22 year old Sergiene, who was seven months pregnant when the earthquake struck.
"Sergiene was referred to Merlin to assess the damage to her broken arm using an x-ray machine. She was quite ill and was concerned that she could no longer feel her baby moving. We used a portable ultrasound machine to give Sergiene her first view of the child in her womb, showing her that the baby was moving and its heart was beating properly," he says.
We are working in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health and other NGOs, as well as being an active member of the UN Health Cluster, to ensure our long term response is as effective as possible.
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