Maternal Mortality Project

So I just realized and must also apologize for the fact that I still haven’t explained what exactly we’re doing in Haiti. As I mentioned earlier, we’re working with Family Health Ministries (http://www.familyhm.org/public/) and they have plans to build a new health center to address many unmet needs of the Leogane community. Recently they broadly surveyed the community to find out exactly what those most pressing needs were and identified maternal mortality as a prominent issue.

So we’re here surveying and assessing maternal mortality and health by using primarily the WHO verbal autopsy questionnaire. Most days we’ll go out into the field with our translator Valery (who looks quite a bit like Eddie Murphy) and ask around trying to find someone with a connection to someone who died during pregnancy or shortly after.

If they agree to speak with us then we administer the consent form and questionnaire. It consists of many detailed questions about the deceased such as demographic info, their symptoms, where they were able to seek treatment, belief of death according to the respondent etc. From there we can highlight common causes of mortality or access to care issues or lack of education in certain aspects. The hope is that once the new health center is developed they’ll know exactly what services are most required and how to most efficiently conduct them.

walking through a tent city (usually we see many more people outside, especially kids)

one of the kids with our hat/shades trying out a new look

So far the community has been very open to our project and almost anyone eligible to participate has agreed to do so. Usually we complete the field portion of the project in the morning when the heat is relatively bearable and then the afternoon is devoted to data input or relaxing. We just recently had dinner with the hospital director Dr. Gladis and starting probably next week we’ll get to shadow physicians and surgeons in the hospital downstairs. We’ll also have the opportunity to work with Dr. Delson at his ob-gyn clinic and observe or help out with any birth deliveries. And perhaps have a chance to volunteer at some school camps. Our project coordinators are also trying to bring in experienced people to talk to us each week such as local Haitian business or microfinance or health workers. The other day we had Fritz, a real estate investor, come give a very fascinating talk about his business and the results of the earthquake and relief efforts and also about Haitian political and social problems.