To help supply two medical libraries that are crucial to ongoing efforts to restore and renovate the Haitian medical system in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, the Countway Library of Medicine is co-sponsoring a book drive with Partners In Health, a global health delivery non-profit co-founded by Paul Farmer, Kolokotrones University Professor at Harvard and chair of the HMS Department of Global Health and Social Medicine.
The book drive kicks off on Wednesday, Feb. 19, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Ballard Room at the Countway Library. Michelle Morse, HMS clinical instructor in medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Partners In Health, will speak about her experiences in working to support Haitian efforts to rebuild their health education and delivery systems.
Book donation boxes will be at the Courtyard Café, the Countway Library, TMEC Atrium and the Kresge Lobby at the Harvard School of Public Health.
To participate in the book drive, interested members of the HMS community can donate recent editions of medical books from their personal libraries, purchase books online through an Amazon Wish List, or donate funds toward library furnishings such as bookcases and desks.
The catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, killed nearly 300,000 people and devastated the nation’s infrastructure. When the last aftershock had settled, many of the nation’s health education and health care delivery facilities were left in ruins. The island nation’s main nursing school and the National Medical School were crushed by the quake, and many of the nation’s hospitals and health clinics were shattered and gone.
An international coalition of nongovernmental, governmental, corporate, foundation and academic partners (including Harvard Medical School and many of its affiliates) has worked together to help Haiti rebuild and renovate its health system, but four years on, there is still much work to be done.
“One of the biggest challenges for health care delivery in developing countries is the lack of human resources for health,” said Morse. “You can’t offer high quality care without physicians and nurses, and you can’t train physicians and nurses without educational facilities and training materials.”
Haiti’s health system was already struggling to meet its people’s needs, and things only got worse after the earthquake, Morse said.
Current students at Haiti’s national medical school are crowded into the one building that was not destroyed in the quake. Efforts to rebuild the school are stalled, and the library, relegated to a small basement room, is stocked with a handful of books that were salvaged from the ruins of the school.
The new Mirebalais University Hospital, a state-of-the-art teaching hospital on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, opened to patients in March 2013 and launched three residency programs in October, but physicians in training there also don’t have access to a functioning medical library with up-to-date texts.
Faculty members who have written medical texts, are updating their own extensive personal libraries, or have received review copies of books that they do not need can help build a crucial resource to support medical student and resident education in Haiti in a concrete way, the event organizers said.
Click here for more information on the book drive and the reception (RSVP suggested, but not required).
