Two hospitals in Haiti’s capital that specialize in the care of childhood cancer, COVID-19 and women with high-risk pregnancies remain closed more than a week after they suspended operations to demand the release of one of their doctors, who has been kidnapped, and to protest the violence that’s paralyzing medical care in the country.
Dr. Benetty Augustin, a pediatrician who specializes in the care of children with epilepsy, was on her way to the epilepsy clinic at St. Damien Hospital in the Tabarre community of Port-au-Prince at around 6:30 a.m. on May 5 when she was abducted just outside her gate in the Laboule 12 neighborhood in Petionville.
It was a weekly routine for Augustin, 44, who runs the clinic. Twelve days later, she remains captive. Her kidnappers are demanding an undisclosed ransom amount, and it’s much more than the family can afford, a relative told the Miami Herald.
On May 9 both St. Damien, a 240-bed pediatric hospital, and St. Luke Hospital, which runs a 120-bed COVID treatment center in addition to its 80 beds, closed their doors, demanding Augustin’s release. The closure was announced by the St. Luke Foundation for Haiti, which operates both hospitals.
“All of the services are closed; we’re not even taking emergencies,” a spokesperson said. “Today marks eight days since we have closed.”
St. Damien treats about 80,000 patients a year — including the 60 to 80 kids who visit its outpatient clinic daily — suffering from everything from tummy aches to malnutrition to cancer. St. Luke, meanwhile, treats about 12,000 patients a year, including those with COVID-19 and victims of motorcycle accidents, who make up about 90% of its trauma care. It also houses one of the few CT scanners in the country.
Augustin’s abduction is the latest in a string of kidnappings and gang-related violence that have continued unabated in Haiti. Physicians and other health workers are increasingly becoming victims, and an already fragile medical system is becoming even more paralyzed as a result of the growing violence.
The closures have incited debate in Haiti, where the poor already have limited access to health care. The spokesperson said while he understands the criticism of those who are troubled by the decision, they need to understand the medical community’s frustrations when one of their own falls victim.
“A hospital without doctors is a warehouse of pathology. There is no point in accumulating sick people in a place called a hospital if there is no medical team to help them,” said Dr. Richard Frechette, a physician and Roman Catholic priest who founded the Nos Petits Freres et Soeurs orphanage and the St. Luke Foundation to help improve medical care in Haiti.
“Hospitals are losing staff who are fleeing the country and those who don’t flee are terrorized and will not take to the streets,” he added. “A hospital has no way to protest except to be consistent. If you take our doctors, you take our hospital. We are nothing without our medical team.”
In several extreme cases, medical care has been shut down altogether due to the violence, which is also cutting off access to facilities that have managed to remain open.
Last year, a network of eight private hospitals and clinics known as DASH was forced to close an 18-bed facility in the Martissant neighborhood of the capital after it fell into the hands of gangs, who used it for cover while launching armed attacks against rivals. The French medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontière, which ran an emergency health center in the same vicinity, also closed after doctors and patients were victims of an armed gang attack.
Then on April 1, Doctors Without Borders announced the closure of another medical facility, this one in Cité Soleil, also due to gang violence. After violence flared up on the eastern edge of Port-au-Prince 21 days later, the charity said it had no choice but to hastily reopen the emergency center in Cité Soleil.
“Maintaining functioning medical structures in these conditions is a daily challenge,” said Serge Wilfrid Ikoto, the medical representative of Doctors Without Borders at the Tabarre hospital. “Some of our local medical staff cannot go home. They are at enormous risk every time they travel. We organize 24-hour shifts to limit their movements, but some of them have not returned home for several days in a row.”
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