Partners In Health Haiti Earthquake Recovery

Thank you so much for supporting Partners In Health and the ongoing mission to help Haiti rebuild after the 2010 earthquake. We are thrilled to share with you an excerpt from a story about Père Eddy (pictured above), "Haiti’s patron saint of mental health," and his work with Partners In Health to improve mental health care in Haiti.

Eddy Eustache, or Père Eddy as he’s most often called, is Haiti’s patron saint of mental health. In the decade since 2005, when PIH (known locally as Zanmi Lasante) hired him as its first psychologist in Haiti, he has trained and expanded his mental health team to include 50 social workers and 13 psychologists who work in 12 clinics across the region. With guidance from PIH’s cross-site mental health team, led by Dr. Giuseppe (Bepi) Raviola, Père Eddy and his team have successfully delivered psychological care in some of the most impoverished regions of the country.

After a 7.0 earthquake shook Port-au-Prince, resulting in more than 300,000 dead and thousands more injured, it became increasingly clear to PIH staff that Haitians needed mental health services. Post-earthquake PTSD wasn’t as much the issue as was long-standing depression, anxiety, and stress developed over decades of poverty, unemployment, violence, and political instability—what Père Eddy calls the “poverty package.”

“The earthquake did not bring mental illness to Haiti,” Père Eddy says. “It has been to everyone an opportunity of awareness raising, where people had to understand that something had to be done, something still has to be done for the burden of mental health. We have a population of more than 10 million with two public psychiatrists. That’s totally under-operational.”

Because of staunch advocates like Père Eddy, the mental health program in Haiti demonstrates what is possible in some of the poorest places in the world. But the priest-turned-psychologist doesn’t take this as a sign that his work is done. In some ways, it’s just begun.

Links:

• Pere Eddy, Haiti's Patron Saint of Mental Health