We conduct a mobile clinic on a month basis in Camp Acra, a sprawling tent city located in the Delmas 33 area. In each session, over 100 patients receive primary care, rapid tests, and free medications. As the clinics occur on a regular basis, we are able to assure continuity of care, especially for patients with chronic diseases (Hypertension, Diabetes, Asthma, Arthritis, etc.).
At Repheka Haiti we prioritize fixed clinics where well-trained clinicians provide continuous and preventive care. However, since the health care situation is still underperforming in Haiti, we remain open to mobile clinics to bring our services to populations that have limited access to quality care. Still, we want patients accessing our mobile clinics to benefit from most of the services offered by our fixed clinics and to assure some kind of continuity of care. This is on these premises that since 2013, we have been conducting mobile clinics at a tent city in Delmas 33 .
In 2012, committee leaders living at Delmas 33 tent city secure funding from HaitiServe to place a school in the area. Later on, they contacted us to consider how they can provide health care to their population.
In 2013, HaitiServe provided the first round of funding for monthly mobile clinics. Thus, we conducted nine clinics in 2013, from March to January 2014 (we skipped December 2013).
In 2014, we are in course of completing six clinics, starting in July.
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Community outreach
Each clinic is preceded by massive outreach from the tent city committee leaders. They contact and motivate families to come to the clinics. They also assign numbers to potential patients.
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Clinic space
The school has a large room and two small classrooms. We transform the two classrooms into exams rooms. In each exam room we place an exam bed (pliable iron bed from the fixed clinics), a table, and two chairs. In the large room, we place nursing station, registration area, and pharmacy area. The pharmacist displays bottles of meds on a table.
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Patient volume and demographic profile
Patient volume at the clinics varies from 80 to 140. Usually we set a limit of 120 patients. However, if we reach the limit before 3 PM, we can accept to see more patients.
About 50% of patients are children (ages 2 to 10); 30% are women; and the remaining patients are men.
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Clinic time
We bring our team at the clinic’s place by 8:30 AM, so that we can start seeing patients at 9 AM. Usually we end the clinic by 4 PM.
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Personnel
The staff is made of three physicians, a nurse, an auxiliary-nurse (from the tent city), a pharmacist, and support staff.
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Rapid tests
At the mobile clinics we offer only rapid tests such as HIV, Malaria, pregnancy, and blood sugar.
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Pharmacy
We bring plenty of medications for children. Our stock includes cough syrups, antibiotics, pain relievers, anti-fungal creams, anti-diarrhea, etc. For adults we have meds for hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, etc. For women we bring iron salts (for pregnant women), anti-contraceptives, meds for vaginal infections, etc. Patients receive medications free of charge.
