Homeopaths Without Borders Helps Haiti
Homeopaths Without Borders (HWB) has led 24 service trips to Haiti since 2010. With the help of volunteer homeopaths, individual donors, and homeopathic organizations and companies, they have been able to provide free health care services to thousands of patients.
In 2012, HWB staff taught the first Fundamentals of Homeopathy course. In 2013, in response to shockingly high maternal and neonatal death rates, they launched the Fundamentals of Homeopathy for Birth Attendants course. Graduates of both these programs, called Homéopathes Communautaires (HC), have proved time and again that they are helping to improve health care delivery in Haiti.
Their first big test came in 2014 when Chikungunya fever was sweeping through the Caribbean islands and reached Haiti in April. The HCs, backed up by HWB staff, were able to offer significant assistance in their own communities. When the HCs reported long-term effects of the disease in the general population, HWB’s Clinical Director Lauren Fox launched the 2015-2016 Observational Study of the Homeopathic Treatment of Chronic Chikungunya Patients.
Going forward, HWB’s long-term goal in Haiti is to continue to build partnerships with key healthcare and community leaders in all 10 Départements (‘states’) to fully integrate homeopathic medicine and education into the Haitian healthcare system in the most efficient, successful, and sustainable way.
HWB encouraged the formation of a professional homeopathic association in Haiti. The HCs created the Organisation de Médecine Homéopathique et Alternative d’Haïti to provide homeopathic health care through mobile clinics by partnering with local community organizations, and continuing education programs.
HWB is collaborating with the Ministry of Health to integrate homeopathic education and training into the Haitian healthcare system.
In 2016-2017, HWB will teach a 90-hour curriculum to medical professionals in collaboration with the Association Médicale Haïtienne (AHM). Participants will receive manuals and homeopathic dispensing kits.
In early 2017, HWB will teach Fundamentals of Homeopathy for Birth Attendants at Mombin Crochu government hospital that is the only health care facility for 40,000+ people in the remote hills of the interior. HWB Volunteer Teams will also work with Hospital Health Agents to organize mobile clinics to serve people in outlying villages who are unable to access the hospital.
For more information or to get involved, contact Holly Manoogian at info@hwbna.org or visit www.hwbna.org