ULS works in partnership with the local community advisory board to identify and support the needs of the people.
In 2010 a mobile health clinic introduced the residents of Bande du Nord and Fort-Bourgeois to health services previously not available due to the distance of these communities to the nearest health center in Northern Haiti. Since then, working with volunteer nurses, doctors, and community people, Dr. Maudelin Mesadieu has established permanent health centers at Fort Bourgeois in the Cap-Haitien community of the Northern Department of Haiti, and now a permanent Community Health Center in Mombin-Crochu in the Northeastern Department of Haiti Both clinics are run by 35 staff: 4 doctors, 7 nurses, 3 laboratory technician, 8 community health worker, 7 cleaners & guards, 3 administration people, 3 credit clerk, and volunteers. ULS provides general consultation, medicines, simple lab tests, immunization, ready-to-use therapeutic foods for the treatment and prevention of childhood malnutrition, and family planning and services. Each clinic services an estimated 800 clients per month. Most of its supplies and medicines are donated by the Ministry of Health and donor agencies. ULS offers free services for patients who cannot pay. ULS works in partnership with the local community advisory board that helps ULS staff understand the needs of the people as well as identify TBAs (traditional birth attendants), mothers for the mothers’ clubs, and the location for the mobile clinic.
Our Founder
DR. Maudelin Mesadieu
When Maudelin Mesadieu was 9 years old, he watched helplessly as his father died.
His parents were farmers in Mombin Crochu, a small village in northeast Haiti. When his father became ill, his family could not afford to provide him with professional medical care in a hospital.
That’s when Maudelin knew he wanted to become not just a doctor, but a doctor who provided care to the needy. That decision was reinforced years later when his uncle’s medical expenses left him so impoverished that he could not afford to purchase medications and died at home.
Maudelin went to medical school at Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince with the financial assistance of American benefactors who met him during a mission trip to Haiti. After receiving his medical degree, Maudelin founded Unité de Lutte pour la Santé, a nonprofit organization whose name roughly translates to “Fighting for Health,” in Bande du Nord (also known as Fort Bourgeois).
Maudelin chose this community because there was a great need for health services. Located in a mountainous area of Cap-Haitien, its residents had to travel for miles to reach the nearest healthcare facility.
“One of the reasons we decided to come to Fort Bourgeois is that there was not a health center in the area,” he said. “So we created one to serve the population. ”For years, ULS operated a small clinic in a leased building in Bande du Nord. Realizing that he needed to expand to better serve the community’s 25,000 residents (and more in nearby communities), Dr. Mesadieu convinced local landowners to donate a parcel of land for a new clinic, and partner organization, Konbit Sante, helped design, finance, and build the new health facility now serving the community..