Haiti is among the countries in the Americas with the highest child mortality rates. The main causes are acute respiratory infections like pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, anemia and chronic malnutrition. Vaccines are an effective way of preventing many of these diseases. The clinic supported by CORRECT Health is at the forefront of bringing critical immunization services to the rural community of Chateau. Partnering with the Ministry of Health, the clinic is one of the health facilities participating in Haiti’s Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI). The Ministry of Health supplies the clinic with vaccines against measles-rubella, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough for children under 7 years of age and diphtheria and tetanus for older children. Vitamin A supplementation is also provided, which is essential for the functioning of the immune system and the healthy growth and development of children. In 2018 and 2019 alone, the clinic staff administered vaccinations to more than 2,300 children.
High quality prenatal or antenatal care (ANC) is an essential component of the reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health continuum of care. Only 54% of pregnant women in Haiti attend the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended minimum of four focused prenatal visits. In 2018, the area of Chateau was home to nearly 400 expectant mothers. The reality of insufficient education and poor health seeking behavior in rural Haiti means that only 65 pregnant women visited the Chateau clinic for antenatal care that year. Through the generous support from our donors, CORRECT Health is looking to increase the number of pregnant women who attend the minimum four antenatal care visits recommended by the WHO. This will be done through community awareness raising, individual antenatal care visits, as well as innovative group antenatal care visits. CORRECT will also properly train traditional birth attendants, known as matwon, on safe delivery, immediate newborn care and health clinic referral signs, and provide them with clean delivery kits for safe births.