When It Can’t Get Worse It Does--November 2015

 Elio Fiallo Hospital–Pedernales. DR (Photo by John Carroll)

The Dominican Republic’s Public Health Department is now involved in the cholera outbreak along the Haitian-Dominican border in the Anse-a-Pitres region of southeastern Haiti.  Significant numbers of people are sick with cholera and are being treated in Anse-a-Pitres and Pedernales, DR. (These two cities are neighbors on the Haitian-Dominican border.)

See this article and this article. 

In September, when I was at the two refugee camps in Anse, I watched as people drank untreated water from a river reservoir.  The Dominican authorities have recently stopped people from bathing in the Pedernales River due to cholera.

During the last few days at least seven Haitians on the Haitian side of the border, some from the refugee camps, have died from cholera.  However, in Pedernales  which is a two-minute walk across the border from Anse-a-Pitres, numerous Haitian nationals (adults and children) have been hospitalized at Elio Fiallo Hospital with no recorded deaths from cholera. 

There is a stark difference between these two developing countries in their public health infrastructure. When the same disease is being treated in locations just several minutes from each other, the results should be the same. However, the Haitians with cholera treated in the DR have a much better chance at survival than their brothers and sisters treated in Anse. And this is due to the fact that the Dominican Public Health Department is better organized and run than their Haitian counterpart. 

None of this is good news for the refugees in the camps. They will be scorned all the more by both Dominican and Haitian governments. The average Dominican citizen is not thrilled with the idea that cholera is coming from the Pedernales River (originating from contaminated water in Haiti) and that Haitians are “filling” their provincial hospital in Pedernales with non-paying  people who are sick with cholera. 

Pedernales River (Photo by John Carroll)

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org