A hospital built by consensus

“Today is the culmination of 25 years of dreaming about better medical care in this town,” says PIH co-founder Paul Farmer, speaking from Mirebalais in central Haiti.

“We’d been talking about it [building Mirebalais Hospital] for a long time, but the opportunity never presented itself until a few years ago,” recalls Dr. Farmer. Then the earthquake hit in January, 2010, and a new, more urgent need presented itself.

“Partners In Health supporters… signed on… and we raised more money than we’d been able to in the past, and so we rethought the hospital into a more ambitious teaching hospital.”

Learn more in a video created by Andreas Nicholas:

The construction of this new hospital will bring to bear all that Partners In Health has learned over the past 25 years about hospital design. The facility will provide the region’s people—some of the country’s poorest—with health care in a dignified setting. It will also serve as a space where health professionals from around the country can train and develop new skills.

Workers broke ground on the facility on July 3, 2010. When completed in early 2012 it will house 320 beds, serve an estimated 450 - 500 patients a day, and help to train Haiti's next generation of doctors, nurses and medical workers.

The music is by Arcade Fire—recipients of this year’s Grammy for Best Album, and longtime PIH supporters.

Read more about Mirebalais Teaching Hospital.