HPH NOW, March 21, 2003, First Lady of Haiti Speaks about Public Health Needs on the Island


	Above, Mildred Trouillot-Aristide (r) fields a question from the audience. At left is Michael Reich, director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.

The First Lady of Haiti described public health challenges in her country at a special event at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies in Cambridge on March 7. Mildred Trouillot-Aristide, a Haitian-American lawyer, is the wife of Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Trouillot-Aristide said that the provision of health care in Haiti has been held hostage to politics. Loans from the Inter-American Development Bank the country had been slated to receive were blocked after controversial elections produced political rancor in 2000.

The most impoverished nation in the Western hemisphere, Haiti struggles with providing basic health care and education. Trouillot-Aristide said that the country is currently revisiting the loan question with international financial institutions. Among the priorities are AIDS prevention and literacy improvement, she said.

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