Overview:
Docs With out Borders (MSF) has completely closed its Turgeau Emergency Hospital in Port-au-Prince as a result of escalating gang violence that threatened sufferers and employees. The middle, which has handled over 100,000 individuals since 2021, had already suspended companies after an armed assault in March. Regardless of the closure, MSF will proceed operations at Tabarre, Cité Soleil, and Pran Males’m.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Docs With out Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) has completely closed its emergency hospital middle in Turgeau, a central district of Port-au-Prince, after escalating gang violence made it too harmful for sufferers and employees.
The MSF closure, introduced Oct. 15, is one other blow to Haiti’s collapsing healthcare system. Dozens of hospitals have already been pressured to close their doorways amid repeated assaults and looting.
The humanitarian group stated reopening its amenities in Turgeau and Carrefour, one other district, will depend upon a humanitarian hall being established between the 2 areas.
“MSF deeply regrets this tough choice, made as a final resort,” stated Jean-Marc Biquet, MSF Head of Mission in Haiti.
“This closure has a big impression on entry to healthcare for a inhabitants already severely affected by violence, instability, and more and more precarious dwelling circumstances.”
Biquet stated the violence has repeatedly disrupted hospital operations, with stray bullets placing the power as a result of its proximity to fight zones. “This is able to make resuming actions too harmful for each sufferers and employees,” he stated.
Hospitals throughout Port-au-Prince have more and more come below hearth as clashes between armed teams and regulation enforcement intensify. The Turgeau closure provides to just about 30 hospitals which have already ceased operations following assaults, fires, or vandalism.
Amongst these are the capital’s largest public facility, the State College Hospital of Haiti (HUEH), the Bernard Mevs Hospital—which handled wounded cops—and the College Hospital of Mirebalais, serving the central area.
“This closure has a big impression on entry to healthcare for a inhabitants already severely affected by violence, instability, and more and more precarious dwelling circumstances.”
Jean-Marc Biquet, MSF Head of Mission in Haiti
The shutdown leaves hundreds of thousands of residents with out entry to care. Greater than 1.4 million individuals, together with 680,000 kids, are actually displaced and liable to illness, in response to the United Nations Built-in Workplace in Haiti (BINUH). The U.N. stories that gang violence has killed over 3,100 individuals and injured round 1,200 this yr alone.
Lots of the injured in Port-au-Prince, Artibonite, and the Centre areas have been handled at MSF amenities—till operations have been suspended. The Turgeau hospital had already been closed briefly after a March 2025 assault that pressured companies to halt. Regardless of safety assessments, the group stated no viable answer was discovered to guard employees and sufferers.
The choice ends almost 4 years of service on the Turgeau website, the place over 100,000 sufferers have been handled since 2021. The hospital had been relocated there from Martissant after gang warfare reduce off the southern entrance to the capital.
The closure follows a sequence of violent incidents focusing on MSF. On March 15, 2025, certainly one of its automobiles was attacked. Months earlier, on Nov. 11, 2024, an ambulance was hijacked in Delmas, ensuing within the killing of a affected person and threats to employees. In December 2023, one other affected person was executed after being taken from an ambulance within the Turgeau space.
Regardless of the Turgeau shutdown, Docs With out Borders stated it should proceed working in different components of Port-au-Prince, together with its Tabarre hospital, Cité Soleil emergency middle, and Pran Males’m clinic.
“Medical motion should happen in full neutrality, inside an area protected against violence, as a way to proceed assembly the pressing wants of weak populations,” the group stated, calling on “all events to respect humanitarian and medical work.”