Jeanne – a story from Haiti

© Diana Valcarcel/Haiti 2010

This is a story by Diana Valcárcel, UNICEF communications specialist currently in Haiti.

Jeanne *(not her real name) sits on a mattress in her tent surrounded by another 45 families in the spontaneous settlement that has sprung up in Port au Prince. Through the plastic walls of the tent, the afternoon sun burns and she tells me her story.

Jeanne is 28 years old, HIV positive and six months pregnant. The day the earthquake struck she was walking home from the market. Her first thought was for her unborn baby, breaking her finger as she protected herself from a falling wall. Jeanne lost everything in the earthquake that day, her father, her partner, her livelihood and…her hope… she tells me. But she didn’t lose her baby, which is due to be born in the next two months.

“Have you thought about a name for your baby?” I ask her. “No, I can’t think. I haven’t had the capacity to think after the earthquake. I am disturbed, confused”.

Jeanne also lost vital anti-retroviral treatment when her house was destroyed. Fortunately, some days later, she managed to receive her medication in a clinic. Stopping treatment has been a concern for many pregnant women in Haiti after the earthquake.

Jeanne found out she was HIV positive in June 2006. The nurse who tested her told her she could not have children. However, through Serovie Association, supported by UNICEF, she was informed that following a retroviral treatment she could have babies. In those days, as she worked and had money, she started receiving a treatment in a private clinic where she was sure that the whole process would be confidential. As she has now lost her job, she can’t afford paying the treatment in the same place. She is worried about going to the Port-au-Prince General Hospital in case people find out she is HIV positive.

According to the Haiti Ministry of Health, there are 120,000 people living with HIV. 63,600 out of them are women, 7,000 pregnant women with HIV and approximately 8,500 children live with HIV In the last year, the incidents of HIV in the adolescent community is becoming alarming particularly in young girls, were the ratio of new infection is two to one, girls versus boys.

UNICEF has been supporting since 2006 a PMTCT (preventing mother to child transmission) programme in the Central Plateau (department in the centre of the country) through Partners in Health were they treated over 2000 women and benefited 400 pregnant women. Also it has been supporting infant diagnosis-pediatric aids services and HIV Aids adolescent programme at Gheskio’s clinic (major outpatient HIV aids clinic in Haiti).

UNICEF staff are working hard to ensure that HIV positive Haitians receive medical care. In order to achieve they will continue to support the Ministry of Health in expanding PMTCT services with a focus in rural areas. UNICEF also will be actively involved in HIV prevention activities targeting the adolescent community, partnering with several local NGOs.

We emerge from the heat of Jeanne’s tent and leave with the hope that in May, she will give birth to the only potential happiness she now owns and continues to receive the treatment that she so desperately needs.