Health and Education

Health & Education

50% of children in Haiti attend school (Haiti Statistics, 2015)
Literacy Rate:
- Females: 57%
- Males: 61-64%
Less than 30% of Haitians make it to the 6th grade
90% of all schools in Haiti are private
The Haitian government has proposed increasing free public education, but there is currently no funding to support this.
80% of teachers have not received appropriate training
Like healthcare, the families of Haiti cannot afford private school tuition along with the uniforms, textbooks and supplies needed.
Approximately 40% of children have access to healthcare

Health System

The healthcare system in Haiti is lead by the Ministry of Health. This ministry is responsible for managing the health country-wide, healthcare services, policy creation and managing the budget (Haiti Profile of the Health Services System, 2003). The delivery of healthcare is divided into three levels, primary care, secondary care and tertiary care. At a primary level there are approximately 800 health facilities and 45 community reference institutions (Haiti, 2017).Secondary care is offered at ten hospitals and tertiary care is provided by five university hospitals and three specialized facilities throughout Haiti (Haiti, 2017). With all of these healthcare facilities in mind, 42% are privately run and 38% are public, leaving 20% of the facilities blended (Haiti, 2017).

There are approximately 900 healthcare facilities throughout Haiti. Although there is a significant number of healthcare providers, a lot of rural living citizens do not have access to these facilities because roughly 50% are located within the capital city of Port-Au-Prince (Haiti, 2017). With that being said, only 35% of the population lives in the city of Port-Au-Prince, making lack of transportation a setback to receiving healthcare (Haiti, 2017). Lack of adequate funds is also significant barrier to health care in this country. Haiti utilizes a direct payment system at point of contact, meaning one must pay that day to be seen by a physician (Children of Haiti, 2019). Since it has been estimated that 75% of Haitians have less than $2.50 per day, it is extremely difficult for this population to afford healthcare (Children of Haiti, 2019). In summary, "the main challenges are: vulnerability of the physical and human environment, dependence on international assistance, poor access to quality health services, weak health information and monitoring systems, prevention and control of NCDs, development of activities to strengthen maternal and child health care, and the limited resilience of the health sector to respond to health emergencies and natural disasters" (Haiti, 2017, p.4).