Pop-up container clinic boosts health care in Haiti

If empty shipping containers can be used to create foldout restaurants and pop-up hotel rooms, then why not pop-up health clinics? Better yet, why not ship those clinics to remote parts of the world where the care is needed most? That, in fact, is precisely the notion underlying Containers to Clinics (C2C), a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that is gearing up to open its first such clinic next month at Grace Children’s Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Through a partnership with the local Ministry of Health, C2C’s clinic is designed to fill critical gaps in health service delivery for vulnerable women and children in disaster-ravaged Haiti. Whereas much health care in the area is currently being conducted beneath weathered tents, the C2C clinic will offer a dignified, secure and clean space for women and children to receive pregnancy care and reproductive health treatment, childhood vaccinations, post-partum and newborn care, and infectious disease testing and treatment from local medical professionals. Two 8-by-20-foot, retrofitted containers make up the C2C clinic: one featuring two exam and consultation spaces and the other housing pharmacy and laboratory spaces. Both are designed with diagnostic, lighting and climate-control technologies appropriate for low-resource settings and compatible with local cultural traditions and health education needs, C2C says. Containers were donated by Triton Containers; design and construction on the project were provided by Anshen +Allen and Stack Design Build. Is there any pop-up need containers can’t serve? We’ve yet to spot one, but it’s particularly exciting to see social needs getting addressed this way. C2C aims to bring its container approach to other needy places as well. Providers of all things medical: one to sponsor, partner with or otherwise get involved in…? Spotted by: Michael Sharkey