University Hospital in Haiti Earns Global Accreditation as Teaching Institution
Partners in Health
University Hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti, received accreditation from an international oversight group, affirming that the hospital meets the highest global standards as a teaching institution—and causing Dr. Paul Farmer to reach for a seat.
“There’s a Haitian expression—news that demands a chair,” said Farmer, Partners In Health co-founder and chief strategist. “Usually it’s bad news, but this is truly exceptional. I have no way to express my gratitude and admiration to the Zanmi Lasante team. They have been tireless.”
PIH was founded in Haiti more than 30 years ago and is known in Haiti as Zanmi Lasante. The team opened University Hospital in Mirebalais in 2013, in collaboration with Haiti’s Ministry of Health. The 300-bed teaching hospital is home to residency programs in internal and family medicine, pediatrics, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, neurology, nurse anesthetists, and emergency medicine.
ACGME-I, the international arm of the U.S.-based Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, notified PIH of the institution’s accreditation this week, after a multi-year process and extensive analysis. University Hospital joins internationally accredited facilities in just seven other countries and is the first such facility in the Western Hemisphere, and the first in a low-income country.
Dr. Sterman Toussaint, director of medical education at University Hospital for Zanmi Lasante, emphasized that distinction.
“This is a big achievement,” he said. “Most of the time, institutions in high - and middle-income countries get access to accreditation - not institutions in low-income countries like Haiti. This is a reflection of the commitment of PIH and Zanmi Lasante to education.”
Toussaint noted that the accreditation application was due in September, during the height of recent political unrest in Haiti that essentially shut down the country.
“Despite all of that, we have been able to meet the standards,” he said. “PIH is committed to meeting the standards that everyone is meeting around the world.”
Dr. Edward Hundert, dean for medical education at Harvard Medical School and an advisor to PIH, praised the milestone.
“This achievement, of the internationally recognized highest standard for the educational programs at University Hospital, represents a truly wonderful validation of the years of hard work to build these programs, and of the outstanding quality of training that they represent,” he said. “This is exciting news not just for the hospital and the people who made it happen, but ultimately for all of the patients who will be cared for by the clinicians who train in these now ACGME-I accredited programs.”
Undocumented immigrant driver’s license bill gets approval from Massachusetts transportation committee
By Michael P. Norton of State House News Service
The Transportation Committee has given a favorable recommendation to legislation that would enable undocumented immigrants to access standard driver’s licenses in Massachusetts.
Barber told the News Service the bill has been reported favorably to the Senate. The committee said it recommended a redrafted version of a bill (S 2061) filed by Senator Brendan Crighton with Barber’s bill attached. Barber said she was “thrilled” about the vote and said she did not believe the bill had previously received a favorable vote in committee.
“Folks have been amazing to work with,” Barber said, citing efforts by a coalition to advance the bill and the support of law enforcement for the legislation. Last year, Senate President Karen Spilka, speaking to the bill’s merits, said, “I believe that for public safety reasons, even just if you look at it alone, we should pass it … There’s like 14 other states that have done this and the sky hasn’t fallen.”
US EMBASSY OFFICE OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
Haiti-DR Private Sector Meeting on Border Security and Control
Joint Statement
On February 5, 2020, representatives of private sector organizations and government officials from Haiti and the Dominican Republic met at the CODEVI industrial park along the border to further discussions on developing a more secure and prosperous border for both nations. This was the third such meeting convened by the U. S. government in the past eight months, and included the participation of both U.S. Ambassadors and staff and State Department officials. Representatives from both countries’ Customs agencies, the Haitian National Police, and CESFRONT also actively participated in the meeting. The discussion focused on best practices for the private sector to increase transparency and to formalize cross-border trade, and on improving coordination between customs and security officials from both countries. This initiative is part of broader efforts to increase formal trade and security along the Dominican Republic-Haiti border. The group committed to continue efforts to transform the shared border into an engine for economic prosperity for the region.
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HAÏTIAN PRESIDENT LAYS OUT TERMS FOR DEAL WITH OPPOSITION
Michael Weissenstein
Published: February 7, 2020, 9:45 pm
Updated: February 7, 2020, 11:13 pm
PORT-AU-PRINCE – President Jovenel Moise said Friday that he is optimistic that negotiations with a coalition of his political opponents will succeed in forging a power-sharing deal to end months of deadlock that have left Haiti without a functioning government.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Moise laid out his bargaining position in the talks that began last week in the mission of the papal envoy to Haiti with political opponents and some civil society groups. He said he would accept an opposition prime minister and a shortened term in office, but only after adoption of a constitutional reform strengthening the presidency.
Moise said his efforts to improve living conditions for Haiti's 11 million people had been thwarted during his first three years in office by the constitutional requirement that the National Assembly must approve virtually all significant presidential actions.
He said he would serve only a single term in office so he would not personally benefit from the powers of a stronger presidency.
“It makes me optimistic to see my brothers and sisters from the political opposition, civil society and religious groups," he said. “I think we're at a crossroads.”
Moise is a former banana farmer who won 56% of the vote against three opponents in the 2016 election. He made some progress on rural infrastructure projects during his first two years in office. Then the end of subsidized Venezuelan oil aid to Haiti fueled chaos in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
Without the help, the economy shrank, and investigations found questionable spending of hundreds of millions of dollars over the years in aid from the Petrocaribe program run by Venezuela. Protests began over the Petrocaribe misspending and protests snowballed until Moise's opponents waged a near-total lockdown of Haiti's capital for three months last fall.
Protests were accompanied by a constant blocking of Moise's agenda in the National Assembly. A small group of opposition legislators blocked Moise proposals with tactics ranging from filibusters to throwing furniture inside the Senate chamber or calling supporters to block governing party senators access to the building.
The country was unable to organize legislative elections and the National Assembly shut down last month, leaving Moise without a constitutionally recognized government. He says the constitution allows him to rule by decree with legislative approval but he is choosing not to in order to forge national unity.
Observers say developed nations that provide Haiti with most of its state budget are ihighly reluctant to keep funding a government that could be accused of moving toward dictatorship.
Haiti's 1987 constitution was drafted after the end of three decades of dictatorship and aims in part to prevent the emergence of another strongman by sharply limiting presidential powers.
“The 1987 constitution took all the power out of the president's hands. The president has zero power and the people demand everything from the president of the republic,” Moise told AP in the foyer of his home in the hills above Port-au-Prince.
Moise said he wants a new constitution to stipulate that presidential proposals automatically pass if the National Assembly does not vote them up or down within 60 days.
He also wants all political terms to last five years. Senate terms currently range from two to six years, depending on a variety of factors, leading to constant churn and campaigning in a country where widespread insecurity and corruption make elections difficult to organize.
Convening a constitutional assembly to rewrite the charter would almost certainly take most of Moise's remaining two years in office.
Most of the political opposition has demanded that Moise significantly cut his time in office, with some demanding his immediate resignation and others asking for him to hand over power early next year.
He said negotiations would succeed “if there's good will on the part of the people involved to find a way forward with a realistic calendar."
“You can't say you're going to carry out these reforms in two months,” he said.
A coalition of relatively moderate opponents and civil society groups were unable to reach a deal with Moise's representatives last week at the papal nunciature. Another group of hard-line opponents did not participate.
Moise said he thinks he can reach a deal with enough opponents to move the country forward.
"'We need to all get together and forge a deal, even if that deal isn't accepted by everyone,” he said. “You'll have radicals, extremists who won't sign, who won't accept it, but that won't kill the republic.
“I’m not hung up on finishing my term. I’m hung up on making reforms,” he said.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Haitian president lays out terms for deal with opposition
https://www.local10.com/news/world/2020/02/08/haitian-president-lays-out-terms-for-deal-with-opposition/
Coronavirus leads to travel bans by Caribbean nations
Jacqueline Charles
The Miami Herald
As the U.S. continues to enforce strict travel restrictions on travelers from China over the coronavirus outbreak, an increasing number of Caribbean nations are also doing the same, while taking steps to screen arriving passengers at their ports of entry.
In recent days, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Dominica, and Trinidad and Tobago have all announced China-related travel bans, even though there are no direct commercial flights between mainland China and their nations.
The Dominican Republic and Haiti, which share the island of Hispaniola, have not made any official announcements about travel restrictions, but over the weekend both countries prevented Chinese visitors on a private jet from getting off the plane. Authorities in the eastern Caribbean island of St. Lucia also prevented Miami-based Carnival Corporation’s AIDA cruise ship AIDAPerla from docking at its port of Castries after it was reported that 14 passengers were being treated for upper respiratory issues.
The ship’s 4,384 passengers were also denied the right to dock in St. John’s, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, but were later received with no problem by authorities in St. Maarten and Martinique, AIDA Cruises said in a statement.
So far, there have been no confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Caribbean or Latin America, and all of the suspicious cases have been ruled out, said Marcos Espinal, director of the department of communicable diseases and environmental determinants of health with the Pan American Health Organization.
As of Tuesday the coronavirus had killed at least 427 people and infected more than 20,000 globally.
Espinal said health ministers representing the 15-member Caribbean Community, known as CARICOM, held an emergency meeting Monday along with representatives of PAHO — the World Health Organization’s regional office for the Americas — and the Caribbean Public Health Agency to discuss the outbreak and preventive measures being taken.
“Every day we have daily conferences,” Espinal said of his staff. “We have offices in Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti, where we have deployed international staff advising the countries. … We are making preparations for these countries to be able to test for this virus.”
While he acknowledged that some health systems in the region are weaker than others, many are already testing for influenza, which kills more people than the coronavirus.
“We should not create a panic,” Espinal said. “We have to make sure that people get the proper information.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the flu has already killed 10,000 people just across the U.S. so far this season, while sickening 19 million people and causing 180,000 hospitalizations.
The coronavirus has had far less of an impact.