Global Health Council 37th Annual Conference: Dateline 2010: Global Health Goals

The massive earthquake which destroyed over 60% of Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns, while claiming over 200,000 lives, also took with it a good portion of Haiti's already fragile health infrastructure and placed extreme stresses on the remaining parts. Although no one could have predicted that such a catastrophe would occur, in many ways the human tragedy which ensued was entirely predictable given Haiti's long-term problems with weak governance, social inequality and environmental devastation. Far from a cause for despair, however, the crisis initiated by the earthquake carries with it the potential for a fundamental rethinking of Haiti's health system. The proximate issue of how best to make use of the flood of international humanitarian assistance and global attention to build a more resilient Haitian health infrastructure has put long-term reconstruction squarely on the agenda of all major parties to the relief effort. This panel convenes multiple stakeholders to the earthquake recovery effort to engage in a visionary conversation about the emerging shape of Haiti's future health system.

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