In Rural Haiti, Shalala Views a Pioneering Effort on AIDS

University of Miami President Donna Shalala, who served as Health and Human Services secretary in the Clinton administration, traveled to Thomonde and Canges, Haiti, this week to investigate a medical partnership that is saving lives and might be replicated elsewhere in the country. US-based Partners in Health, which also runs Bon Sauver Hospital in Canges, teamed with Medishare, a Haiti-focused Miami group founded by UM doctors, to open the Thomonde Health Center. With assistance from the UN Global Fund and a grant from the Green Family Foundation, PIH will receive $13.7 million to fund HIV-related work.

Haiti has the Western hemisphere's highest rates of HIV, TB, infant mortality and maternal mortality, as well as the lowest life expectancy. Shalala said she hopes to increase the number of UM medical students who work in Haiti during vacations. She also wants to see more nurses in Haiti and to help raise more money. Currently, there are fewer than two doctors per 10,000 people in the country.

Shalala expressed interest in Thomonde Health Center's community health agent program, which aims to involve other universities and medical schools to canvass different areas of the country for community health census data. "The diseases don't know what country they're in," Shalala told a gathering in Port- au-Prince. "So it's important for the people of South Florida to know what we do here will affect them."

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