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Documentary reveals Haiti’s health-care crisis, April 25
Posted April 22, 2005; 11:59 a.m.
“Once There Was a Country: Revisiting Haiti,” a documentary chronicling the health-care crisis in the West Indian nation, will be screened at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 25, in 4 Friend Center.
Filmed by writer and director Kimberly Green, narrated by poet and author Maya Angelou and her son Guy Johnson, the 55-minute documentary examines the shortage of medical care in remote areas like Thomonde, a dirt road town in Haiti ’s central plateau region. The film follows an HIV-positive young man and a family of eight suffering from tuberculosis.
Also appearing in the film are volunteer U.S. doctors, many of whom were sent by Project Medishare, a Miami-based nonprofit whose aim is to provide medical relief for the Haitian people. The doctors, working with local physicians and health-care workers, helped create a hospital that treats rural residents who otherwise might never have received proper care.
The documentary will be followed by a panel discussion with Green and Ellen Powers, the executive director of Project Medishare. They will present the work in Haiti as a model for addressing health-care issues in other developing countries.
The Program in African-American Studies is sponsoring the screening and discussion.