Health Initiative

 Health Access

The Vassar Haiti Project is committed to building, staffing, and supplying a medical clinic in Fiervil, a town located at the base of the mountain on which Chermaitre sits. VHP’s annual Art and Soul Gala provides funding to sustain the medical clinic, which has an annual budget of under $45,000. Since 2014, the clinic has made professional medical attention accessible to residents of Chermaitre and the surrounding villages for the first time. Our clinic has seen a substantial increase of patients coming from afar. The clinic now serves 3000+ patients annually.

The Fiervil-Chermaitre Clinic

Through a series of art sales, beginning with a sale at Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor, NY, VHP raised sufficient funds to construct a three-room clinic, which was completed in 2013. On VHP’s March 2012 Haiti trip, volunteers saw the site where the foundation of the clinic had been laid. The clinic is accessible by road and treats patients from 42 villages. The clinic includes two examination rooms, a pharmacy, a waiting area, and a bathroom.  

In 2014, VHP hired a Haitian doctor, Dr. Gueslin Joassainvil, to see patients during twice-monthly clinic days. Dr. Joassainvil works with a midwife and two full-time Haitian nurses, who staff the clinic five days a week and provide health education at the school in Chermaitre. Dr. Joassainvil leads the clinic staff, works to ensure that the clinic is fully staffed, and receives regular shipments of medications and supplies. The Health Initiative has several new and ongoing projects in place to continue to improve the medical care provided to the region surrounding the clinic. Through a partnership with the Haitian government and/or a large NGO or foundation in Haiti, VHP is hoping to create a sustainable pathway for the medical center in Fiervil.

 3000+ patients from more than 42 villages, are seen each year by our Haitian medical team: one doctor, two nurses, and one midwife.

Our Medical Advisory Board

VHP staffs and supplies the clinic, under the auspices of a Medical Advisory Board, a group of health professionals seeking to provide guidance in all aspects of clinic operation in Fiervil, Haiti. The Board consists of members from the Poughkeepsie and larger Hudson Valley community including doctors, nurses, and other specialists in the healthcare field. Some of the areas in which the Medical Advisory Board serves the Fiervil clinic are medication management, infrastructure development and improvement, health education, fundraising, and much more. Vassar Haiti Project truly appreciates the invaluable time and effort the members put into improving the lives of patients so far from Poughkeepsie.

  Current Projects & Goals

 Medical Clinic Expansion via Solar Panel Laboratory

Due to the tremendous distance and cost associated with going to the hospital closest to Fiervil, most clinic patients do not get critical exams and operations done. In addition, without electricity, and thus refrigeration, the clinic staff is unable to offer a vaccination program. Vaccinations would reduce cases of malaria, typhoid, measles, rubella and cholera – some of the most common diseases in the region.

Rotary International Global Grant

The Vassar Haiti Project works actively with Dr. Gueslin and the rest of the clinic staff in Fiervil to deliver high-quality and -impact medical services in the region. The clinic staff has urged VHP to help them expand medical care accessible through the clinic to include an onsite laboratory. In 2020, through the generosity of the Poughkeepsie-Arlington and Walden Rotary Clubs (District 7210), we were able to secure a grant of $126,000 to fund the construction of a solar-powered laboratory adjacent to the clinic.

The clinic staff in Haiti, Medical Advisory Board members, and VHP students are eager to see the plans for this important addition to the clinic come to fruition in the next few years, along with the short-term and long-term effects it will have on the health of the communities. The new solar laboratory will contain diagnostic equipment in which the staff will be able to conduct prescribed exams and diagnose illnesses with greater precision and speed through more sophisticated diagnostic testing protocols. The power provided by the sun will also enable VHP to install a refrigerator appropriate for the storage of vaccines in the lab to begin a vaccination program for children.

In 2016, our partner Père André Wildaine started the Memorial des Gonaives Rotary Club in Haiti, which will help us oversee this project to its completion. Progress on this next step for the clinic will run concurrently with a continuance of health education campaigns in the area, and in local schools, covering topics such as disease prevention and water sanitation.

  Past Projects

Henry Schein Global Donation

In 2015, the Health Initiative received a generous donation of $65,000 of medical supplies from the Henry Schein Global Donation Program. On July 10th 2017, with the help of Food for the Poor, VHP shipped a 20’ container from Vassar College to Haiti packed with the medical supplies, which included two new hospital beds and a C-PAP machine. These medical supplies will not only be distributed to VHP’s clinic in Fiervil, but also to the clinic in L’acul, the Alma Mater Hospital in Gros Morne and the teachers in Chermaitre.