Every week, medical and logistics teams set up under tents, turn precarious spaces into consultation areas, and welcome pregnant women, sick children, elderly people, and those traumatized by years of violence.
Widespread insecurity, the collapse of essential services, and mass population displacement, have pushed Haiti into a profound humanitarian crisis. Violence linked to armed clashes, particularly in Port-au-Prince and Delmas, has deprived thousands of people of access to healthcare, clean water, and food.
Already under strain, healthcare facilities struggle to meet growing needs, while vulnerable communities face increasing precarity.
“Here, we are cared for by ALIMA”
Marie Carline has been living at the Mormon displacement camp for three years, after fleeing armed attacks in her neighborhood, Carrefour-Feuilles. She is raising three children, one of whom has a disability.
Daily life is extremely precarious. “When it rains, we can’t sleep. There are so many illnesses. Here, we are cared for by ALIMA,” she explains.
Before meeting ALIMA’s medical teams, her health was deteriorated significantly. Marie Carline suffers from high blood pressure.
“I was always angry, always sick. They [ALIMA’s teams] helped me see a psychologist and gave me medication. It has helped, I now feel better,” she says, visibly relieved.
Medical and Human Support
For her, the mobile clinic’s regular visits represent much more than just medical treatment; they provide crucial moral support. “I wish ALIMA could always stay with us so people can keep receiving healthcare. They treat patients with respect. That’s very important.”
Like Marie Carline, Esterline lost everything when she fled her neighborhood. A former shopkeeper in Carrefour-Feuilles, she now lives in a tent with her children. “I have a house, but we can no longer stay there. We sleep here now, under the open sky. Sometimes, bullets fall near us,” she recalls.
Pregnant and abandoned by her child’s father, Esterline found with ALIMA a support that she no longer expected. “They didn’t just treat me medically. They gave me the strength to continue my pregnancy. They provided psychological support while also accompanying me medically,” she recalls.
“The doctors provide a level of care that’s not always available even in private hospitals,” she says. “Never stop caring for displaced people,” the young mother adds.
Like Marie Carline and Esterline, over 1.2 million people are internally displaced across the country.
Community Health Workers: An Essential Link
If ALIMA is reaching so many people in these hard-to-access camps, it is also thanks to its health promotion teams. Marc Deverson Beauvoir, a community supervisor, coordinates the work of community health workers across several sites and disadvantaged neighborhoods.
“We are ALIMA’s eyes, ears, and voice within the communities,” he explains.
Community health workers identify the most vulnerable individuals, raise awareness among families, refer pregnant women, monitor patients with chronic illnesses, and report medical emergencies. “Without this link, many needs would go unnoticed. They tell us where to intervene, when a family is in danger, when a child is seriously ill,” he adds.
He recalls in particular a night intervention in Cité Soleil. “A family alerted us about a pregnant woman in severe distress. We were able to call an ambulance immediately. Both mother and child were saved,” the humanitarian worker recalls.
The Presence of ALIMA Teams: A Sign of Stability
In the camps, the arrival of medical teams is eagerly awaited. For displaced people whose daily lives are marked by uncertainty, this regular presence represents a form of stability.
At Mormon, as in many other sites hosting internally displaced people, ALIMA goes beyond just providing medical care. Healthcare workers listen, support, guide, and reassure. This carefully built proximity is essential to establishing trust in an environment shaped by fear, precarity, and violence.
Thanks to extensive community-based work, ALIMA teams have restored access to healthcare for tens of thousands of internally displaced people. Mobile clinics and medical teams operate across 17 relocation sites and overcrowded areas of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. Over 36,000 people have received outpatient consultations from ALIMA’s medical teams. Among them, more than 3,500 were pregnant women, whose follow-up was essential.
With the financial support of the European Union (ECHO) and in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and Population, ALIMA is today a key healthcare actor, working as close as possible to populations who are too often deprived of access to care.
Photo credits: © Woo-Jerry Mathurin / ALIMA
