Staffer Attends Haiti Conference

IMA World Health Program Officer, Ann Varghese, discussed the role of health focused faith-based organizations (FBOs) in Haiti during a conference sponsored by the National Haitian-American Health Alliance (NHAHA) on October 21. Specifically, she focused on the role they play in health system strengthening.

The presentation focused on the work IMA is doing in Haiti and how FBOs and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) must work in partnership with existing government structures to strengthen and sustain the health system.

Late in the day news of the cholera outbreak had reached the conference which highlighted the need for a coordinated country-wide plan to bring adequate housing, clean water, a functional sewage system, and health access to all Haitians.

According to NHAHA, the conditions that led to the cholera outbreak in St. Marc are the same in every other part of the country.

"Unless the country's infrastructure as a whole is improved, and the capacity of the Ministry of Health is strengthened, we will continue to put out fires and our fellow Haitians will continue to die in the same conditions," Yanick Sanon Eveillard of the NHAHA said in a press release.