Recently, Direct Relief donated a truckload of essential medications and supplies to Haiti Help Med Plus, a nonprofit organization founded in 2003 by Haitian expatriates with the goal of improving the quality of life and participating in the sustainable socioeconomic rebirth of Haiti.

Haiti Help Med Plus works to supply all local health centers with equipment and materials needed to treat the underserved patients in the area. This recent shipment of donated medications and supplies will be used primarily to treat people with cholera and babies with fever and respiratory infection. It was successfully delivered to six different facilities in the region.

Since 2003, the organization has successfully renovated and expanded the hospital in Paillant near Miragoane, a coastal town in western Haiti. This hospital was built by Reynolds Aluminum, Inc in 1955 and was the only hospital in the Nippes region. As a 10 bed hospital, it offered free services in internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, maternity, radiology and laboratory.

According to Dr. Ralph Gousse, founder of Haiti Help Med Plus, “My first lessons in medicine were learned right there. People came from all over to be treated there.” However, the hospital lost its financial support in 1982 and by 2003 it had transformed slowly into a small health center with no electricity, no water, no toilets, no radiology and no surgery, a rotten ceiling and a leaking roof.

Haiti Help Med Plus renovated the building and took on the challenge of adding a new building to the current site with a new surgical suite, a dental clinic, an ophthalmology clinic, two bathrooms, a large waiting room and conference room, a new archive section and three new exam rooms. This whole new hospital was inaugurated July 24, 2010.

Direct Relief is happy to deliver essential medicines and supplies to Haiti Help Med Plus and support their mission of improving the quality of life for those living in rural Haiti.