Social Issue

Haiti suffers from one of the highest infant mortality rates in the Caribbean region, with six deaths for every hundred babies. Poverty and unhealthiness cause illness and suffering among the child population, 8% of which suffers from severe malnutrition, and 22% suffers from chronic malnutrition.

Our Response

The medical-nutritional recovery of children project at the St. Damien pediatric hospital helps to combat the alarming rate of malnutrition among the child population in Haiti, where one in ten children dies from this cause.

Managed by NPH’s local partner in Haiti, NPFS, St. Damien Hospital provides high-quality medical and hospital treatment to 90,000 sick and vulnerable Haitian children each year.

Children suffering exclusively from malnutrition are cared for in the malnutrition unit of St. Damien Hospital, which is the only one in Haiti that has a specific nutrition care unit (NCU) to treat this problem. An average of 400 critically malnourished children are treated each year, with a mortality rate of less than 15%.

The duration of the nutritional recovery program varies depending on the degree of malnutrition of the patient, but usually includes approximately six weeks of hospitalisation. However, the most severe cases of malnutrition may require two to three months of hospitalisation, and are often extremely difficult to treat. Once this phase is over, the children who have been discharged are monitored on an outpatient basis through weekly consultations to follow up their progress in an external malnutrition clinic, the Kay O’Bois, located next to the hospital.

Expected Social Impact

95 Haitian neonates and children who were in poor health due to malnutrition have benefited from the project. In addition, the capital contributed indirectly affects the families of the minors affected.