Two days before the last Christmas, Dr. Pierre S. Prince took an exciting new job as the director of the largest public hospital in Haiti, which the United States spent tens of millions of dollars, renewing and was so deep on the band’s territory that it was closed for a year.
Dr. Prince, a 57-year-old thoracic surgeon, was looking forward to returning to the State University Hospital in Haiti, who was devastated by the 2010 earthquake that decimated the country’s capital.
He stayed there and needed to monitor the new wing, a 500 -bed object with nearly $ 100 million renovation and a series of services, including operating rooms, orthopedics and mother and neonatal units.
On Christmas Eve, as he went to work, the gangs attacked a press conference, which was supposed to publish partially re -opening the hospital, killing a police officer and two journalists and seriously injuring seven more journalists. The reopening never happened.
The situation worsened last month: Videos This circulated on social media and confirmed by the New York Times showed an older building at a General Hospital, as it is commonly known, swallowed in flames. Gang members obviously set it on fire.
“Doctors are afraid, and our residents and trainees are depressed,” said Dr. Prince. “Some of them left. Morality is very low.”
The fate of the hospital emphasizes all the desperate conditions faced by Haiti and his international donors as they try to save Port-Au-Prince from the control of armed gangs, which aimed at health institutions abroad.
Haiti, where the United Nations say that about 20 percent of their 10 million people endured the acute level of hunger, and 1 million escaped from their homes for violence, depends especially on foreign assistance and receives up to $ 400 million a year from the United States alone.
However, as Elon Musk takes the ax to the American side aid around the world and dismantled the US International Development Agency, programs such as continuous renewal of the General Hospital in Port-AU-Prince are on cross-hairs.
A new wing of the hospital for which USAID helped pay, already tortured a large the cost of exceeding and the decade of delay in construction. He is now erupted by repeated crime groups attacks because the capital of Haiti has become a iniquity quarter despite billions of dollars in international assistance.
“The General Hospital is like a study study on how to go wrong,” said Jake Johnston, a researcher at the Economic and Policy Center and a study that wrote the “State Assistance”, a glittering account of how billions in international assistance failed to enhance the public institutions of Haiti. “And they never finished the job, and the general hospital is closed for all these other reasons.”
The Haiti General Hospital built in addition to the presidential palace in the center of Port-AU-Prince by the American Engineering Corps during the US occupation of Haiti, from 1915 to 1934.
For years, many patients have been victims of shooting and torture. In a country where politicians and rich elites travel to the Dominican Republic or Miami for health care, the General Hospital served overcoming poor masses.
“It was the only dialyzing machinery in the country,” said David Ellis, an American who runs a helicopter medical service at Port-Au-Prince. “It was, when it was open, the most comprehensive surgical center in the country.”
In the 2010 earthquake, he was so badly damaged that no one was able to treat hundreds of seriously injured people gathered outside, their bloody limbs exposed to dusty air.
The restoration of the hospital was one of the first projects approved by the International Reconstruction Committee formed for the renovation of Haiti after the earthquake. France has committed $ 40 million, the United States $ 25 million.
After a series of delays and contractual disputes, it was scheduled for completion in June 2023 – nine years later than originally planned.
At the same time, the political situation on Haiti got worse. The president was killed in 2021, and the abductions and murders grew.
In July 2022. USAID increased its contribution by $ 10 million because the Haitian government could not pay its share, according to a 2023 Report by the Office for the Government’s responsibility, the Congress Guardian Agency.
The hospital was just one of several projects that Gao tested that ended over the budget. The United States spent $ 2.3 billion to support the renovation of Haiti in the decade after the earthquake, and only half of the eight major projects that Gao examined were completed.
While key power plants and about 900 homes were built in Port-Au-Prince, there were two projects, including the construction of a new port, abolished when the costs increased, and two more persons are already in the General Hospital-Josh always last.
Technical and political disputes caused significant delays and exceeding the costs in the hospital, Gao said.
But the hospital pounded, half open, while working on the new wing stopped.
Then a year ago, the band coalition came together to attack police station, closed, hospitals and communities. Gangs of homes and the entire neighborhood were cleaned – including the city center where the hospital is located.
The former prime minister had to escape the shooting during an official visit to the General Hospital last year and was rejected by his security details While CNN cameras were rolling.
In addition, too dangerous, more than 800 people working at the hospital, including doctors and nurses, have been paid to stay at home for almost a year.
“There seems to be an intense desire to waste us time,” said Dr. Stevens Gabriel, a resident surgeon who complained that he had not been transferred to another object to continue to progress his skills and training.
Although police barracks are nearby, the gangs robbed a general hospital. The governments of the United States, France and Haiti have already spent around $ 90 million. Electrical wiring, water supply and equipment have been stolen, although much of the new medical equipment has not yet been installed, said Dr. Prince.
The damage was estimated at three million to 4 million dollars and could return the project for another two years – if the security situation ever improves to open the hospital again, he said. Now Dr. Prince says they are scouting a new temporary place to work.
Eleonore Caroit, a French member of the parliament for citizens living abroad in Latin America and the Caribbean, which sits in the Development Agency’s Committee that has helped the project financing, said that drones are used to assess damage from a recent fire.
“France is ready to do what can help,” she said, “but the situation is very complicated. My voters tell me that it was never so bad.”
Satellite paintings captured eight days after a fire of commercial satellite companies Planet Labs show that one older coal building and at least two others were damaged.
Dr. Barth Green, President of Project Medishare for Haiti, a charity organization with headquarters in Miami and the main advocate of health services in the country, said the attack was particularly emphasized because the General Hospital was dressed generations of nurses and doctors.
“It’s a national university hospital,” he said, “and so, destroying it, it’s a symbol.”
The question is crucial: only one of the three main hospital in the capital was opened. Of the 92 health institutions in the metropolitan area, only 39 is operationally, according to Pan American Health Organization.
Under the new pressure on Trump’s administration to eradicate foreign aid, The funds for most of the Projects funded by USAID were frozen, although the judge recently ruled that the Agency had to fulfill past contracts.
Asked about the hospital status, the American State Department, who took control of the help agency, said he would conduct an overview with the aim of “restructuring assistance in serving American interests.”
“Programs serving the interests of our country will continue,” State Department states. “However, programs that are not aligned with our national interest will not.”
The Haitian Ministry of Health did not respond to the commentary requests.
Responding to Post o X criticizing billions spent on Haiti after an earthquake, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé agreed to have failed most of American assistance.
“You’re right !!” He wrote In a message focused on Mr. Musk“USAID spent a billion (sic) on Haiti without responsibility. Haiti needs economic development and safety, not corruption and crown. “
He added that he was looking forward to working with President Trump to achieve economic prosperity for Haiti.
Devon lum contribute to reporting. Dmitry Khavin Video editing.
