Konbit Sante Receives $50,000 Grant for Infection Control

 

Over a period of two years, Konbit Sante Cap-Haitien Health Partnership will receive $50,000 from the Pan American Health and Education Foundation (PAHEF) to improve infection control at Justinian University Hospital in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. The grant-funded project will address ways to control the spread of infections that can be transmitted from patient to patient and between patients and staff in the hospital.

Justinian Hospital is a 250-bed public teaching hospital operated by the Haitian Ministry of Health. There is no clean, potable water in most of the hospital. Open-air wards make control of infectious diseases very difficult. The hospital often operates without electricity for many hours at a time. The only public bathroom facilities are sub-standard pit latrines. This resource-poor hospital is the largest health care provider in the northern part of the country and serves an estimated population of 825,000 people.

The project will be overseen by Robert Smith, MD, MPH, Director, Infectious Disease Fellowship at Maine Medical Center and Konbit Sante volunteer. Dr. Sandeep Soni, an infectious disease fellow at Maine Medical Center will carry out the assessment, design, implementation, and measurement, working with Konbit Sante staff and Haitian colleagues.

The four-phase project will begin with an assessment of the current knowledge, attitudes, and practices at the hospital. Next, Konbit Sante and Haitian colleagues will develop policies and procedures that can be implemented given the realities of the available resources. During the third phase new policies, procedures, and physical changes will be implemented. The fourth phase will focus on impact measurement.

According to Dr. Smith, “The spread of infections within hospitals remains a major challenge everywhere. We hope that we can develop a sustainable model that may prove particularly useful in hospitals with limited resources.” Drs. Smith and Soni will travel to Cap-Haitien in June 2007 with a group of other Konbit Sante volunteers and staff to begin their work.

Started in 2000, Konbit Sante is a Maine-based group of medical and non-medical professionals working to improve the public health system in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Rather than developing a second, parallel health system, Konbit Sante’s mission is to help build local capacity for Haitians to care for Haitians. Ongoing Konbit Sante-sponsored programs are in place in pediatrics, internal medicine, and public health. Konbit Sante currently employs a dozen health care workers and technicians in Haiti, and U.S. staff and volunteers travel to Haiti throughout the year to teach, to develop programs, to deliver medical equipment and supplies, and to make infrastructure improvements.

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and has the dismal health statistics that accompany extreme poverty. It is rated last in the world on the Water Poverty Index. Haiti has the highest maternal mortality ratio in the western hemisphere with a 1/16 lifetime chance of dying in childbirth, compared to 1/30,000 here. One in five children does not survive to age five. The rates of infectious diseases such as HIV, TB, malaria, dengue fever, filariasis, and intestinal parasites are the worst in this hemisphere and contribute to the low life expectancy of the people of Haiti.