Haiti
Population, (2017): 10.98 M
Income per Capita, (2018): 728.92 US
Percentage of GDP on healthcare, (2015): 6.87%
training
Year Family Medicine was Established: 2011 (Partners In Health, 2015)
Length of Medical School: 6 years (personal interview, 2018)
Length of Training Program: 3 years (Partners In Health, 2015)
Type of Training: Residency (Partners In Health, 2015)
Number of Institutions That Offer Family Medicine Training: 2 institutions (Partners In Health, 2015 & Abundance Foundation, 2019)
Number of Trainees: 16 spots each year (Partners In Health, 2015)
practice
Number of Family Physicians: Currently, the number of family physicians per capita is very skewed as it is a very new concept. There are very few family physicians in the country right now (personal interview, 2018).
Number of Physicians: 25 physicians per 100,000 (Partners In Health, 2015).
DALY: 47,529 per 100,000 individuals (Due to all Causes).
Life Expectancy:
Females 2017: 67.8 years
Males 2017: 64.0 years
Mortality rate 2017:
2017 Males: 240 per 1,000 male adults.
2017 Females: 189 per 1,000 female adults.
Infant Immunization-HepB3: % of 1-year-old children received: 72%
College of Family Physicians (Y or N):
NO
Healthcare System
The healthcare system in Haiti is mostly private in nature. There are very few publicly funded health resources and if they are there, the level of care is subpar. Family medicine is not really recognized or publicly funded in Haiti, however, they are called family physicians, which is a step in the right direction. It is a relatively new concept here and it is hard to implement something like this in an unstable environment like Haiti. Unfortunately, the actual number of private and public care physicians could not be found, however in the urban areas, 83% of consultation fees are done in the private sector and in the rural areas it is only 17% as most physicians work in the private sector in urban centers (Healthcare in Hati, 2018 & personal interview, 2018). Since there is a much higher concentration of affluent people in the urban areas, this may explain this discrepancy.
Access to care is quite difficult as hospitals are not easily accessible. The centers that are available, are not well suited for healthcare. Travelling to hospitals is also hard due to the geography. Barriers to healthcare include the cost and geography, and if people have money, essential medications are available. The rarer treatments may not be available (personal interview, 2018). The doctor’s equipment in the cities are quite up-to-date, however, in the rural areas, it is fairly scarce, which might explain the higher concentration of private sector fees in the urban areas (personal interview, 2018).
practice
Family physicians make up most of the primary care deliverers, however, there are nurses, community health workers and also midwives. Family physicians mostly work in an outpatient setting in hospitals and health clinics and deal with acute cases and minor surgeries. They primarily work alone in hospitals, but during training, they work as a team. Since the system in Haiti is mainly private in urban areas, family physicians do not act as gatekeepers. Patients can go directly to the secondary care without a referral. They use a community based primary care model (personal interview, 2018).
References
Informant #4, interviewed by Althaf Azward, November 30, 2018
“Haiti: Training a New Generation of Family Physicians | Partners In Health.” n.d. Accessed November 25, 2018. https://www.pih.org/article/haiti-training-a-new-generation-of-family-physicians.
“Haitian Medicine Residency & Nurse Training Project | Abundance Foundation.” n.d. Accessed November 25, 2018. http://www.abundance.org/health/residency/.
“Health Care in Haiti.” n.d. Accessed December 1, 2018. https://www.monroecollege.edu/uploadedFiles/_Site_Assets/PDF/Health_Care_in_Haiti.pdf.