Haiti People risk their lives to seek medical care
Chronic diseases are life-long conditions for patients which require regular monitoring and medication.
“Accessing care can prove very difficult in the Haitian context,” says Dr Fritsch. “Conditions like diabetes, hypertension, asthma, or epilepsy require medication that is often expensive, and sometimes unavailable at pharmacies because of supply problems.”
In the emergency department of the MSF hospital in Cité Soleil, medical teams see around 30 patients each day, some of whom are in acute crisis linked to a chronic illness. They accounted for around 10 per cent of patients in June 2026. The clinical picture varies depending on each patient’s illness, but all of them are in a severe state, requiring rapid treatment.
“In the case of hypertension, these are patients who can no longer breathe properly, whom we may need to put on oxygen and treat for oedema,” adds Dr Fritsch. “Diabetic patients, whose blood sugar is too high, can fall into diabetic ketoacidosis, which is the leading cause of death from diabetes.”
Once stabilised after a period of hospitalisation, patients are given medication, or insulin for those with diabetes, before returning home.
“When a diabetic patient is discharged, they have to keep taking their insulin at home, monitor their blood sugar and diabetes-related complications, and make sure they eat a balanced diet,” says Dr Fritsch. “That’s extremely difficult for this type of patient.”
Although it is the leading cause of death in Haiti according to WHO, MSF teams see relatively few deaths linked to chronic diseases at the Cité Soleil hospital.
“Most deaths happen outside of health facilities, because patients are unable to travel due to violence or the cost of transport, or because they are too frail and facing an acute crisis,” says Dr Fritsch.
Since March 2026, a partnership with the Haitian Foundation for Diabetes and Cardiovascular Diseases, (FHADIMAC), has made it possible to offer a year of follow-up care to certain hypertensive or diabetic patients.
“To benefit from this programme, patients must first have been admitted to MSF’s emergency department for a crisis linked to one of these illnesses,” explains Dr Fritsch. “We hope this care can help break the vicious cycle these patients are trapped in, between emergency care, stabilisation, hospitalisation, returning home, difficulty accessing treatment, and going back to the emergency room.”
However, complications linked to chronic diseases require specialised care that is sometimes unavailable in the Haitian capital. Without follow-up, a person with hypertension can suffer a stroke, “a situation for which there is almost no solution in Port-au-Prince,” says Dr Fritsch.