This clinic on Champ-de-Mars has been providing inexpensive services since the late 1980s
A dental clinic is one of the few institutions still operating on Champs-de-Mars.
With consultations priced at 1,250 gourdes, this structure of the Service Œcuménique d’Entraide (SOE) – a Haitian non-governmental organization – offers one of the lowest and most affordable dental care services in the metropolitan area on Rue Lamarre.
As insecurity reigns in the streets downtown, the clinic continues to provide consultations and care to a population whose economic capacity is dwindling daily, just a stone’s throw away from Bel-Air.
The 1,250 gourdes fee is “a contribution from the clients to ensure the maintenance of the space and the remuneration of employees. Our main goal is to help and expand the scope of dental care to people who don’t have a big budget,” Marly Pierre, the clinic’s secretary, tells AyiboPost.
As insecurity reigns in the streets downtown, the clinic continues to provide consultations and care to a population whose economic power is dwindling daily…
The Service Œcuménique d’Entraide was founded in 1977 by Haitian professionals. That same year, SOE directed its first interventions in the field of community health with international support. The NGO established clinics in several provinces across the country: Bassin-Bleu, Fort-Liberté, the Central Plateau, Chambellan, and Thomonde.
The Champs-de-Mars clinic has been providing its low-cost services since the late 1980s.
According to Dr. Jean Hugues Henrys, the organization’s objective since its inception has been to “contribute to the country’s development in an autonomous and endogenous manner.”
SOE does not intend to replace the State. “We are merely contributing to establishing and sharing effective programs for the benefit of the majority of the population, with a preference for community-based initiatives,” adds Dr. Henrys.
Dentist Françoise Ponticq provides care to a patient in her clinic on Champs-de-Mars, May 9, 2024.
In 1989, SOE launched a dental care program through the Groupe d’Appui pour la Santé Intégrale (GAPSI). In the same vein, the general medical consultation clinic near Champs-de-Mars – which was the private property of Max Henrys, one of SOE’s Haitian founders – became a community-oriented institution managed by the Service Œcuménique d’Entraide.
“The clinic is not a private enterprise, emphasizes Jean Hugues Henrys. It’s an affordable service for the population.”
The clinic also provides general medical consultations, an anatomy and pathology laboratory, and an optometry service which has been suspended for technical reasons.
The dental service is managed by Dr. Françoise Ponticq, a Frenchwoman who has lived in Haiti for over 30 years. Born in Pau, a town in southwestern France, on February 11, 1960, Ponticq had just completed her studies in dentistry in Toulouse in 1985 when she first heard about Haiti. At the time, she dreamt of travel and adventure, seeking a foreign landscape as the backdrop for her professional practice.
Dr. Françoise Ponticq in her clinic on Champs-de-Mars, May 9, 2024.
After a failed travel program to northern Ethiopia, weakened by internal wars in 1986, she was eventually selected to be part of a humanitarian contingent from the NGO Aide Médicale Internationale (AMI) heading to Île de la Tortue in Haiti.
“I had to open an encyclopedia to learn that the island belonged to Haiti,” Ponticq tells AyiboPost. She arrived in Port-au-Prince on November 11, 1986.
Together with three Haitian colleagues, Ponticq landed in the Haut-Palmiste locality on Île de la Tortue, where SOE would provide, among other services, training for dental assistants and nurses in basic dental care. In 1988, the organization invited Ponticq to join the project as a dentist in Port-au-Prince. At the time, the project was still in its early stages. She began working there the following year.
Marly Pierre has been working as a secretary for the clinic for over a year now. She takes pride in the professionalism of her colleagues and the institution’s mission, which resonates with community service, aimed at economically disadvantaged individuals.
“Our consultation fee is so affordable that the clinic has a strong client base, Pierre shares. Sometimes we have to refer clients elsewhere because we don’t have enough hands to take care of them all.”
“The clinic is not a private enterprise, emphasizes Jean Hugues Henrys. It’s an affordable service for the population.”
– Dr Jean Hugues Henrys
Clients attest to the quality and affordability of the service.
Charles Étienne René considered himself lucky when a friend recommended the SOE clinic in 2022 for his wife, who was suffering from dental pain. A different dentist demanded USD $800 from the couple for proper care. The woman received intermediate dental cleaning services for 2,000 gourdes (about 15 dollars) in total, according to René. SOE also allowed him to pay the amount in several installments, according to his means. Since then, he has had his prophylaxis done every 6 months at the clinic. “They are very patient professionals who see the person before the money,” René says.
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The year 2024 will mark SOE’s 44th anniversary and more than 30 years of service for the clinic, which is staffed by two dentists, a messenger and a general practitioner. But the climate of insecurity on the Champ-de-Mars puts a strain on the clinic’s activities at times.
The institution revised its usual schedule in February. Open from 9 am to 5 pm initially, the management has opted to close at noon. “Things can be difficult, but we never consider closing our doors,” declares Dr. Jean Hugues Henrys.
Cover Image: Dr. Françoise Ponticq in her clinic on Champs-de-Mars, May 9, 2024. | © Philicien Casimir/AyiboPost
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