NPR interview on the National Teaching Hospital at Mirebalais

“At least 70 percent of medical infrastructure in Port-au-Prince was destroyed [as a result of the January 12 earthquake],” says Dr. David Walton, Deputy Director of PIH’s Mission in Haiti, in an interview with Boston Public Radio’s Sacha Pfeiffer. As medical care facilities were so concentrated in the capital city, this loss represents a significant majority of the health care to the Haitian people, Walton added.

The January earthquake also destroyed the country’s major teaching hospital and nursing school. At a time when medical workers are in dire need, the country has been hamstrung in its ability to train its own people to fulfill these rolls. Walton explains that hundreds of medical students in limbo, unable to currently complete their educations.

Walton and Partners In Health have collaborating with Boston-area medical schools and Haiti’s Ministry of Health to begin construction of a new $15 million teaching hospital in Mirebalais that will train the country’s desperately needed future health care workforce. The cornerstone of the facility was laid on Friday, September 10.

 “We hope to create a space where these things are available to the Haitian people…in the public sector, available to those people who need them most,” says Dr. Walton.

Listen to Dr. Walton’s interview.