Haiti’s hospitals plan to close amid fuel shortages

Most of Haiti’s hospitals are cutting the number of patients they can admit or are readying to close as their supplies of fuel have reached critical levels.

Many hospitals depend on fuel generators to power their facilities, because the electricity grid is prone to outages, but gangs have blockaded the main fuel terminal in protest against rising gas prices, starving the country of fuel. Three quarters of the nation’s major hospitals are affected by the lack of fuel, Unicef said on 26 September.1

The shortages mean healthcare workers can’t get to work and hospitals are struggling to procure drugs and medical supplies. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to provide sterile conditions for medical procedures, and disruption to cold chain …