WHAT WE DO....

Growing Haitian Capacity from Our Medical Mission Roots

Our Haitian health care partners are at the center of what we do.  Our actions focus on:

Empowering our Haitian health care partners.

Building capacity for quality, dignified, and local Haitian-based care.

Facilitating independence and greater sustainability for the future.

Our health care partnership with Centre de Santé Sacré-Cœur de Thiotte (CSST) – the Sacred Heart Health Care Center of Thiotte - provides primary and preventive care, maternal and child health care, community health outreach and education services, basic emergency care and triage. Among vital services are child nutrition, malaria surveillance and treatment, and immunizations.

Immunization rates in this remote region are among the highest in the nation,
and most women receive prenatal care
because of the services provided through our health care partnership.
 

Centre de Santé Sacré-Cœur de Thiotte (CSST) is committed to providing quality care and services as a medical facility for all people. Care is provided at the health care center in Thiotte and extended throughout the remote and mountainous region. The service area encompasses about 160,000 people of the Belle Anse arrondissement and surrounding communities. Thiotte is the economic hub of the area and Centre de Santé Sacré-Cœur de Thiotte (CSST) is the “go to” health care facility for reliable, trusted, quality and dignified care. 

 

We target support, facilitate growth, and promote change that progresses the Sacré-Cœur health care center toward greater independence and greater sustainability.  Our efforts stabilize and enhance current Haitian delivered health care services, while also developing specialty services in response to locally identified health care priorities and priorities set by Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health and Population, Ministère de la Santé Publique et de la Population. 

 

Over the course of a typical year, about 60% of patients seen at the health care center are children and pregnant women.  CSST employs doctors, nurses, lab and pharmacy techs, and community health workers. The medical director also supervises doctors and nurses who are placed at CSST by the Ministry of Health for social service rotation. CSST serves as the reference healthcare facility for this remote area.

 

The mission of Centre de Santé Sacré-Cœur de Thiotte is “to address the immediate health needs of people and the underlying causes of illness and suffering, ensuring peace and the restoration of human dignity, as well as promoting autonomy, and integral sustainable development. It responds to the needs of the disadvantaged and marginalized by using a non-profit approach to alleviate suffering through expanded care. This approach affirms that we are all connected and that individual well-being can only be achieved in a context of shared wealth, peaceful relationships and a thriving environment.”

 

Haiti Medical Mission of Wisconsin is a non-secular organization. However, our health care partnership with Centre de Santé Sacré-Cœur de Thiotte operates under a memorandum of understanding with the Diocese of Jacmel.  And, we embrace the guiding principles for conducting joint health care delivery and projects put forth by the Catholic Health Association: prudence, authenticity, honesty, patience, excellence and humility.

 

Our health care partnership with Thiotte, Haiti originated in 1997. At inception we employed a medical mission model. In response to the community of Thiotte’s request for assistance, we funded and established the Sacré-Cœur health care center - Centre de Santé Sacré-Cœur de Thiotte (CSST). In partnership, we strive toward a future of greater independence and greater sustainability for this region of southeast Haiti.

 

We have transitioned over the years from providing care, to working along our Haitian partners, to more fully empowering our Haitian partners.  In collaboration, we are building greater Haitian-based capacity for quality, dignified and locally provided care.