Medical students march to move Haiti's General Hospital out of the crossfire

Medical students at Haiti’s State University marched again on July 1, demanding the relocation of the country’s main teaching hospital out of gang-controlled territory, and one of them was shot.

Milot Exantus, a student at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy of the State University of Haiti, was struck in the right arm during the march. Fellow students said his condition was stable. It was the second demonstration in a week; the first was dispersed with tear gas.

The students’ demand is stark in its simplicity: move the Hôpital de l’Université d’État d’Haïti, where they train and where some of the capital’s poorest patients seek care, away from territory where staff, patients and students are exposed daily.

Haiti’s health system cannot rebuild without the generation now in its classrooms. The students say their training, and the patients who depend on it, cannot wait for the front line to move on its own.