Delivering a baby was already risky, but an unprecedented surge in gang violence has forced clinics and hospitals to close
The worst fears of midwives at Heartline Haiti were realised last week. As they prepared the maternity clinic for patients that evening, armed men laid siege to their neighbourhood in eastern Port-au-Prince, spraying bullets at police and rival gangs, setting cars on fire and ransacking houses.
“All of our staff were huddled in an interior hallway hearing the noises outside the gates and walls, afraid they may be next,” says Tara Livesay, the NGO’s executive director. “A gang member was shot dead outside, just two doors over.”
After a terrifying night, staff managed to make it out safely the next morning when the street battles subsided. The organisation has had no option but to close the clinic, leaving the 75 pregnant women it had been supporting with nowhere to go for medical care or to have their babies delivered.
“We’ve tried so hard to keep the clinic open but there is not much else we can do now. I can’t ask people to go to work if they might get hit by a bullet,” says Livesay.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As they prepared the maternity clinic for patients that evening, armed men laid siege to their neighbourhood in eastern Port-au-Prince, spraying bullets at police and rival gangs, setting cars on fire and ransacking houses.
“All of our staff were huddled in an interior hallway hearing the noises outside the gates and walls, afraid they may be next,” says Tara Livesay, the NGO’s executive director.
Armed gangs have terrorised the Caribbean country since its president, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated in July 2021, but in the past month there have been unprecedented levels of violence.
Then imagine having to deliver and care for a baby on top of that,” says Philippe Serge Degernier, Haiti representative for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which provides sexual and reproductive health services.
When Sanderline went into labour last month, she had to choose whether to give birth to her first child at home without a midwife or pain relief or to risk being caught in the crossfire of warring gangs if she travelled to a clinic.
One midwife at another clinic in the southern limits of the city, who asked to remain anonymous for their safety, said most of their patients were young women who had got pregnant after being forced to sell sex for food, or were raped by gang members.
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