Changing lives of children with clubfoot in Haiti

A medical professional prepares bandages to wrap the legs of a child with clubfoot at Adventist Hospital in the Carrefour neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

cbm, in partnership with Cure International, has started implementing a three year programme in Haiti, which aims to provide treatment to an estimated 600 children born annually with clubfoot in the country. This will include creation of treatment centres, training of technicians, surgeons and consultants, and education of the community. More than 500 treatments sessions have been administered since the beginning of this programme.

•     Creation of six treatment centres in strategic areas spread throughout the country
•     Training of technicians, surgeons and consultants to the Ponseti method of treatment, which uses casting and in some cases incisions to reposition the developing foot

•     Education of the community about the problem of clubfoot and where people can receive treatment.

Reconstruction of temporary and permanent buildings

Consultation sessions with trained clubfoot technicians are held weekly in communities across the country (Port-au-Prince, Carrefour, Jacmel, Cap-Haitian and Les Cayes). Dr. Alexis Francel, an orthopaedic physician specialising in the treatment of clubfoot in this programme, states that “more than 500 treatments sessions have been administered since the beginning of this programme in January 2011. Every Wednesday we get between 40 and 50 children aged 0 to 2 years in our clinic at the Hospital Adventist d’Haiti in Carrefour, Port-au-Prince. For corrections, we use the Ponseti method. It consists of a series of application of Plaster of Paris (PoP) on clubfoot until the final correction. Our goal would be to treat all children born with clubfoot here”.

Models of how bandages are used to correct clubfoot at Adventist Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti