Page 63 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 2 Winter 2014

63
ng Containers into Clinics
elementary-school classmates in Dover,
Mass. When Somol became executive
director of C2C in 2012, she created a
business plan that focused on partnering
with local health ministries to establish
the container clinics as indigenous enter-
prise. In her community-based research,
she discovered that many residents were
already paying for healthcare in Haiti.
Based on that information, C2C now raises
funds through charitable contributions to
cover the construction of the clinics and
to offset potential revenue shortfalls.
“Over time, we hope to have enough
patients at the right price point to cover
the cost of annual operations, including
staff and supplies,” Somol says. “Our goal
is to be sustainable in three to four years.
It’s a hybrid model that combines ideas
from the nonprofit and private-enterprise
approaches.”
Each container clinic requires approx-
imately $125,000 for fabrication and
equipment, but maintenance over time
doubles the cost. While the first two
clinics in Namibia and Port-au-Prince
(both operated by local partners) focused
on maternal health, the Camp Coq clinic
offers a broader spectrum of services to
meet the needs of more residents in the
underserved population. Each clinic
consists of two of the 160-square-foot
containers and includes a consultation
area, a laboratory, a pharmacy, and space
for health education. Each facility employs
up to 10 staff members. The plan is to part-
ner with more local health organizations
to build and sustain additional clinics in
Haiti, Central America, and Africa over
the next several years. Somol and C2C
believe that if they build them, the locals
will come.
“The things that are important to me
are the same things as a poor Haitian
living in rural Haiti,” she says, “quality
and convenience and dignity and accessi-
bility. I am a mother, and I’m anxious when
my child is sick; I want to her to get the
care she needs. It’s the same for a mother
in a poor community in Haiti. It doesn’t
matter if you are the CEO of Pepsi or a
poor Haitian laborer; you still need the
same things from your healthcare system.
When the healthcare system cannot meet
the demands of its citizens, I believe free
market enterprise solutions, like the one
C2C employs, have a role to play in meet-
ing that need.”
Left: Somol ’88. Below: Health education
at a C2C clinic in Haiti.