Planning a Hospital

Ever wonder what all the board members and volunteers are doing in the US to support VHF's mission in Haiti?  Well, currently we are spending a great deal of effort planning our next steps. In particular, we have a very active group that is laboring over the question of how to design and build a cost-effective surgical center that will be more effective and sustainable than the standard hospital.  This is the big challenge in Haiti as well as throughout the developing world.   There are, unfortunately, too many empty hospitals throughout the world that were built but couldn't be sustained.  For instance, a survey of a few large hospitals in Haiti shows that their yearly operating costs can be 2/3 thirds of the initial building costs.   We hope to do much better by not overbuilding and by intelligent design.  Right now we are in the phase of soliciting comments from medical professionals and others who have worked at the clinic this year.