MIAMI – For decades, Project Medishare has maintained a significant presence in Haiti, providing critical care, medicine, trauma services and even operating maternal health centers.
“We give birth to death care for 100,000 people every year,” said Dr. Barth Green with Project Meidshare.
But those life-saving efforts may soon come to a sudden end because federal funding from the U.S. government has been frozen amid efforts by the Trump administration to halt how the U.S. funds international relief.
“USAID probably supports 90% of our community health programs in the north,” said Green.
Green said Project Medishare is the only resource keeping thousands of Haitian children alive.
Most of whom getting their only meal of the day while in school. The nonprofit also helps by keeping the doors open at some orphanages on the island nation.
Pulling out, Green said, would be devastating not just for the Haitian people but for the United Dtates.
“Hundreds of thousands of Haitians will show up at the borders and come by sea, but the number of deaths is not calculable,” said Green. “We can’t measure the deaths because it will be every day in every place, and it be from starvation, from a lack of basic medications, from a lack of being able to have a baby safely.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now the acting administrator of USAID and has only given a waiver to military relief, but not humanitarian aid, for which the group, with an office in Miami, falls under.
“There’s no doubt that our government agencies need organization, but it’s how you go about it in these specific instances,” said Green.