Location: Deschapelles
Web site: www.hashaiti.org
In 1956 in central Haiti’s Artibonite Valley, Larimer and Gwen Mellon founded a medical center to meet the needs of an impoverished community with no access to health care. Larimer had read a 1947 article in Life magazine about Albert Schweitzer’s hospital in Gabon, which inspired the Mellons to enroll in medical school and dedicate the remainder of their lives to establishing the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer (HAS), the first modern hospital to open in Haiti.
In the early 1960s Dr. Mellon saw that their community needed more than emergency health services. He transferred leadership of the hospital to his wife and created a community development program which improved local water supplies, introduced better farming techniques and reforestation, assisted with animal husbandry, developed microenterprises to generate income, and helped village groups strengthen skills and financial independence.
HAS expanded its outreach with a home-visiting program in the 1970s and promoted neighborhood-based “rally post sessions” offering immunizations, primary health care, and education; and created a network of dispensaries, health centers, and mobile clinics for isolated communities, offering adult care, prenatal care, pediatric care, and family planning.
Today HAS’s community health program works closely with nearly 300 village midwives and with community health workers to educate mothers of malnourished children about nutrition and provide breastfeeding education and counseling. It coordinates with community workers to collect census data, register families, and make maps for a computerized community-based information system. They have trained 1,800 volunteers to detect signs of deteriorating health and provide first aid.
Hôpital Albert Schweitzer stands today as a model integrated rural health system, providing medical care and community health and development programs for more than 300,000 people. The hospital deals with malnutrition, difficult childbirth, physical trauma, and the diseases of tropical poverty. Visiting medical professionals from North America and abroad work with a permanent Haitian staff of almost 550. Financial support comes from partner organizations and private individuals around the world.
Hopital Albert Schweitzer became a Direct Relief partner in 2010, with support initiated in response to the Haiti earthquake.