Health Services for Women and Girls in Haïti

This project supports the rebuilding of the National School of Midwifery (l'Institut national de formation des sages-femmes - INFSF) and the construction of a maternity clinic in Haiti. The project includes training professional midwives and Haitian management and health personnel. The maternity clinic will have two qualified midwives and will offer services such as emergency neonatal and obstetric care family planning services services for preventing and screening HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections and services for victims of sexual violence. The project aims to offer some 230 000 women and girls who were victims of the earthquake including 25 000 pregnant women greater access to neonatal and obstetric preventive and emergency services. The project activities include: (1) building a national school of midwifery to train qualified midwives; (2) working with the Ministry of Public Health and Population and project partners to develop a new curriculum based on international standards to train midwives; and 3) building and equiping a maternity clinic with an emphasis on emergency neonatal and obstetric care. This project is part of Canada’s maternal newborn and child health commitment.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) Haitian midwives receive quality training equally accessible to women and men aligned with the expectations/needs in obstetric/neonatal care and in family planning taking into consideration the rights of women and girls; and (2) the use of obstetric/neonatal care in Haiti has increased for populations served by the maternity clinic built.