By David Henry | Volunteer Public Health Coordinator
Many thanks to all of you who generously have been supporting our maternity and pediatric wards at HBCH! With your donations, we’ve been able to care for many Haitian mothers and children who otherwise would not receive medical attention. From March to May 2013, our maternity ward has provided care for 834 hospital visits - 70 visits to birth a child (half of those high-risk c-sections) and 402 prenatal visits including 189 ultrasounds. Haiti has an unusually high maternal mortality rate, even compared to other developing countries in the region. One of the largest factors for this troubling statistic is that more than 75% of all births happen at home without trained medical staff. Because of the reputation of our outstanding medical staff and facilities, HCBH is slowly dismantling the dangerous cultural norms of childbirth that have been prevalent for centuries. Many mothers in northern Haiti know that they can come to HCBH for excellent prenatal care, have a birth attended by an obstetrician and a pediatrician, and receive first-rate postnatal care for both herself and her newborn.
The pediatric ward at HCBH is just as busy! From March to May, we saw 883 visits, 181 of which were in-patients, and the remaining 702 were to the pediatric clinic. With your help, we were additionally able to provide for 149 children through our nutrition program. When the majority of a child’s meals consist of rice and beans, it’s impossible for them to consume all the vitamins and minerals that are necessary for healthy development. Unfortunately, that diet is the best case scenario for many young children in northern Haiti. Thus the ability to provide Medika Mamba, a fortified peanut butter made in Haiti, for a child makes a world of difference to them and their families.
We sincerely appreaciate your support of HCBH’s maternity and pediatric wards and hope we can continue to count on your to support our life-saving programs!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
