MIAMI – Gangs attacked a critical trauma center in Port-au-Prince and set it on fire. Local 10 News spoke with an advocate of that hospital about the effects this latest tragedy will have on an already fragile country.
Miami-based Project Medishare was a partner with the trauma center that burned, Bernard Mevs Hospital.
No patients were injured in the fire, but Haiti’s healthcare system was already on life support and this likely was the final blow.
The video is haunting, horrible, and hard to believe: Bernard Mevs Hospital was burned, abandoned, and ransacked.
Millions of dollars in medical equipment was destroyed. It was the only trauma center serving the entire country.
Months after the catastrophic earthquake in 2010 that cost so many lives, it was the best functioning medical facility in Haiti.
The hospital’s main supporter, Project Medishare, is led by Dr. Barth Green.
“If soldiers of Haiti, the police were injured, they went to Bernard Mevs, and if the bandits and gangsters were shot or injured, they went to Bernard Mevs. And everybody was treated,” Green said. “Questions weren’t asked, and the fact that this no longer exists is just heartbreaking. It’s actually so counterproductive for the gangs to take away their own safe haven for health care; they have no place to go.”
Green added, “We can’t let them down. Every time they’ve been knocked down, they get up again. Now we need to make sure they stand up permanently. This no longer exists.”
As of now, Green said Haiti’s healthcare system has completely collapsed.
Bernard Mevs was burned from Molotov cocktails and the gangsters, likely teenagers, went back a second day, ravaging what was left.
“They’re given these weapons, they’re high on drugs, and they do things that are irrational, like burn down the only trauma center where their families and their friends could go to save lives. It’s gone,” Green said. “Now what the United States and Canada and France, especially, as well as the rest of the world, has to do is empower the Haitian people. They have to determine their future.”
After decades of work in Haiti and despite the many dire challenges, Green says he still has hope, but there is fear that others looking at the country’s condition may not.