Partners in Health, the Boston-based global health organization that had operated in Haiti since 1987 and built some of the country’s most important health infrastructure, mobilized rapidly as COVID-19 arrived in March 2020, drawing on three decades of experience with Haitian health systems and communities to support the pandemic response. PIH’s deep roots in the Central Plateau and its relationships with community health workers across the country made it one of the most capable organizations for a rapid COVID response.
PIH’s approach drew on its longstanding model of community-based care, deploying the network of accompagnateurs — community health workers — that the organization had trained over years to support contact tracing, community education, and the identification of sick individuals who needed care. The community health worker model was particularly well-suited to pandemic response in a country where formal health facilities were inaccessible for much of the population.
The organization also worked to strengthen the capacity of Haitian public health facilities to manage COVID cases, providing equipment, training, and technical support to hospitals in its network. In the absence of adequate government capacity, PIH’s support represented a critical component of Haiti’s national pandemic response infrastructure.
PIH’s co-founder Paul Farmer, whose life’s work had been built around the conviction that excellent healthcare was a right that should be available to the world’s poorest populations, spoke publicly about Haiti’s COVID situation in ways that drew international attention to the country’s needs and the inadequacy of the international response. His advocacy helped ensure that Haiti remained visible in discussions of global health equity during the pandemic.