IOM Health Team Helps Haiti's Earthquake Survivors Return Home from Hospitals

The International Organization for Migration

March 19, 2010

Haiti

An IOM staff assists 76-year-old Clerette Antoine into a ShelterBox tent provided by the Organization and its partners. IOM launched this week the Assisted Patient Discharge, Transfer and Return Programme to help patients who are medically ready to leave the hospital for home and provide them with emergency shelter, social support, and ongoing health care services. © IOM 2010

The IOM Migration Health Unit this week launched the Assisted Patient Discharge, Transfer and Return Programme to help patients who are medically ready to leave hospital for home and/or rehabilitation care, but are considered vulnerable and in need of assistance with community reintegration in the Port-au-Prince area. 

With funding from USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), the one-year programme will decongest crowded hospitals and link newly discharged patients with emergency shelter, social support, and ongoing health care services. 

An IOM medical team made up of physicians, nurses and caseworkers will manage requests received from local hospitals and partner agencies. Requests for assistance may be made via phone and email.

In the aftermath of Haiti's devastating January earthquake, overloaded hospitals report a significant backlog of patients medically ready for discharge, but unable to leave hospitals' wards and hallways because they are homeless, lack transport to their preferred communities and settlements and/or will be unable to secure medical follow-up after discharge because of the distance to rehabilitation and wound care services. 

The most vulnerable earthquake survivors – including amputees, women/single-headed households, persons with disabilities, pregnant and post-partum women, children under the age of 5, the elderly and those with special needs – need assistance to move from the overcrowded hospitals and rehabilitation centres to their communities, homes and internally displaced settlements.

"The patients we serve are those who simply have no place to go from the hospital. In order to restart their lives, they need help arranging basic shelter and accessing medical care," says Patrick Duigan, Head of IOM Health Unit in Haiti.

Such is the case of Clerette Antoine, a 76-year-old woman whose home collapsed during the earthquake, killing her sister and three-year-old granddaughter. Ms. Antoine was briefly trapped in the rubble of her home, breaking multiple ribs. She was admitted to the Hôpital de l'Université d'État d'Haïti, where she received rehabilitation care. She has been medically ready for discharge for weeks, but remained in the hospital along with her sister and nephew as all are homeless and have nowhere to go. Their only option is moving into one of the spontaneous settlements in Port-au-Prince. 

IOM and its partners have provided Ms. Antoine and her family a sturdy ShelterBox tent, kitchen kit, hygiene kit and cots. IOM caseworkers connected Ms. Antoine with a distant relative who is able to make room for her tent on his property. IOM will continue to provide medications and transport to rehabilitation services to Ms. Antoine after her discharge from hospital.

"Patients like Ms. Antoine, who are elderly and disabled, need more than housing. They need to restart their lives in a setting where they can access community and social support," explains Jessica Greenberg, IOM Technical Advisor. "She walks with a walker and needs help moving from sitting to standing. She can't move into a settlement and sleep on the ground safely. In these emergency situations, the elderly are often forgotten."

Ms. Antoine was discharged from the hospital on Thursday, and transported to her new home by an IOM team.

"The hospitals are full of survivors who are disabled, many of them amputees. 
These are people who are ready to move on, but have lost too much and have nowhere to go. Assisted discharge supports them in rejoining their communities safely." adds Greenberg.

Up to 5,000 patients and their family members will benefit from this IOM programme over the next twelve months. 

For more information, please contact:

Bertrand Martin
IOM Port-au-Prince
Tel: +509 3859 8619
E-mail: bmartin@iom.int 

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