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On January 12, 2010, a blind-sided world became re-acquainted with Haiti when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, located on the island of Hispaniola. Nothing has been the same since. With resulting disasters, the earthquake immediately brought the people of Haiti and their country's crisis to the forefront of the media world and to global attention. Haiti's catastrophic event has nakedly and harshly exposed the bare truths of its people as heard by the voiceless screams of invisible Haitians living in poverty.

The people of Haiti live in a world of extreme poverty, and have been for quite awhile. This is not a new thing. But in countries like Haiti that are extremely poor, the basic needs for humanity are not supplied---things like infectious disease control, economic rights, social justices, public health, a proper education, adequate access to medical care, adequate mental health care, electricity, adequate shelter and safe drinking water. Haiti may not be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but it certainly is the poorest of the Americas--- a desolated country surrounded by some of the richest countries in the world. 

Haiti is not the only poor country with recent disasters. But it is Haiti that has the full attention of the media and of the entire world. Yet few observers will understand or can accept that politically-torn Haiti, with severe poverty as a normal way of life, is now in critical trouble.

Even though poverty in Haiti has long been recognized as a troubled situation, the Haitian people have been able to bounce back from extreme situations with true resiliency, religious faith, desire and ability. Unfortunately, at a time when they need it the most, the flexibility of the Haitian soul is gone.

International psychiatrists are vowing to help the government of Haiti create a mental health care system. Meanwhile, the acting director, Dr. Franklin Normil of the Mars and Kline Psychiatric Center---the only Haitian psychiatric hospital---has been working with no pay for over five months.  And frustrating as it is, little can be done for the screaming and howling mental health patients of Haiti who are now padlocked in tiny concrete cells, gutters clotted with human feces and pools of stale urine under old metal cots with few mattresses to sleep on.  Help may be coming, but it cannot get there fast enough for such individuals.

Haiti's poverty has been mixed with racism, social inequalities, and sexism, present throughout the long history of its country. According to Arachu Castro and Paul Farmer (Castro & Farmer. 2003), these social forces of the poor are referred to as large-scale structural violence which "predisposes the human body to pathogenic vulnerability" through an increased risk of infections and reactivation of diseases. Disease control and medical treatment in poor countries are the most important health threats in the world, with poor treatment and inadequate cast detections playing a big hand in the end game.

The opinions of public health experts do not agree on policy for disease control and treatment for poor countries because: (1) the cost of treatment is too high; (2) poor countries do not have adequate infrastructures; and (3) the poor patients have a lack of adherence to their own treatment. However, the work of Castro and Farmer shows the opposite experience in providing health and social services in Haiti to the poor—a level of people who share the bottom rung of the social ladder in inegalitarian societies.

What these arguments have accomplished so far is to strengthen structural violence in a country that can ill afford it. Haiti is built on the backbones of defeated and frustrated Haitian people whose entire existence is poverty. This is the same group of people who have accepted early in life the attainable goals of their life is being unable to attend school, never having enough water or food, inadequate medical attention, and are forced to live in diseased environments with unsanitary living conditions on a minute-by-minute basis.

"In Haiti, Mental Health System is in Collapse" by Deborah Sontag (3.19.2010)

"AfterHaiti quake, a crying need" by Deborah Sontag (3.20.2010)

"HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and social inequalities", by Arachu Castro and Paul Farmer (2003)

"Lesson from Haiti: "I will never leave you nor for forsake you" by David Torres

"Haiti --- poverty drives people to cut too many trees" by Friends of the Earth- International