The Pan American Health Organization reported that approximately 40 percent of health facilities in Haiti were closed in 2025, with an additional 33 percent operating only partially, leaving two in five Haitians without access to essential medical care. The collapse of health service availability represented the cumulative impact of years of crisis: gang attacks on facilities, staff fleeing insecurity, supply chain disruptions, funding shortfalls, and the physical destruction of infrastructure that had never been adequately maintained.
Médecins Sans Frontières, which had been one of the most important providers of healthcare to violence victims and other patients in Port-au-Prince, suspended operations at a key medical facility in March 2025 after its vehicles were fired upon, and permanently closed the facility in October 2025 — a devastating loss for a population that had depended on it as a healthcare provider of last resort. MSF’s decision to permanently close a facility reflected an assessment that conditions had made continued operation impossible to sustain safely.
The health facilities that remained open were operating under conditions of extreme scarcity. Medication supplies were chronically insufficient. Medical equipment that required maintenance went unserviced as spare parts could not be sourced. Healthcare workers who continued to report for work despite unpaid salaries and physical danger represented the fraying thread connecting Haiti’s population to any healthcare at all.
The closure of 40 percent of health facilities had cascading consequences that extended beyond the denial of direct healthcare. Maternal mortality, already among the highest in the hemisphere, was rising as women could not access prenatal care or skilled birth attendance. Preventable and treatable conditions — diabetes, hypertension, infections — became death sentences when the facilities needed to manage them were closed. The health system’s collapse was a slow-motion mass casualty event that received far less attention than the direct violence producing comparable harm.