Partners in Health

It was immediately apparent to PIH/ZL staff that mental health and psychosocial services would be an integral component of our response to the earthquake. We more than doubled our existing staff of 35 in Haiti, which greatly enhanced our ability to address emergent problems. The addition of these new staff enabled the mental health and psychosocial team to develop and implement a comprehensive, Haitian-led response to our patients’ needs.

In the first months after January 12, we worked to address the basic material and psychosocial needs of the people most affected by the earthquake: children living in spontaneous settlements, and men and women who lost family members. Moving forward, we will increasingly implement more intensive clinical programs to find and offer treatment to persons experiencing long-term psychological or psychiatric distress.

In addition, PIH/ZL’s mental health and psychosocial team is working in close collaboration with our rehabilitation program to embed psychosocial staff into rehabilitation activities, providing support for amputees and people suffering the effects of serious physical injuries. Patients benefit greatly from this integration of care, particularly those patients living with undiagnosed mental health problems that have been amplified or complicated by the stress of the past six months. Equally important, we are also working to enhance the ability of community health workers (CHWs)—the men and women who most intimately interact with local community members—to identify and refer people suffering from mental health problems.

These CHWs refer persons with mental health problems to ZL’s existing staff of physicians, nurses, psychologists, and social workers. Because these staff members have been increasingly interacting with persons suffering from earthquake-related psychological trauma, they have requested training that allows them to better evaluate and treat these individuals. To date, PIH/ZL’s mental health and psychosocial team has trained 176 medical professionals in basic evaluation of acute mental health problems. In tandem with these trainings, ZL has significantly expanded the quality and quantity of psychopharmacologic medications available at its hospitals and health care facilities.

PIH/ZL’s mental health and psychosocial team is also committed to educating communities about mental health and illness in an effort to begin reducing the stigma associated with more severe conditions. While we want to improve the capacity of Haitians to treat acute mental health problems in the community, we also know that integrating local beliefs, attitudes, and perceived needs to different forms of care is crucial to developing a cultural acceptance of psychiatric and psychological models of mental health care in Haiti.

As with all of our programs and initiatives, PIH/ZL’s mental health and psychosocial team is committed to working with the Haitian Ministry of Health and the UN as we more comprehensively integrate mental health care into Haiti’s medical system. One of our next steps will be to establish a dedicated mental health clinical training service at the Ministry of Health hospital at Verrettes.