Structural violence and illness in Haiti: reflections on an experience

Abstract

Talking about health and especially the search for curing diseases in impoverished and unempowered global societies brings out broad and conflicting reflections. Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and one of the poorest in the world. The extreme vulnerability to which the population is exposed is easily perceived by analyzing its health/ disease/attention process, as this is one of the areaswhere experiencing suffering,the perception of inequity and ineffective interventions are notorious, depicting structural violence as a historical legacy in each case report. Structural violence is perpetuated today by global social and political forces and can be thought of as a factor associated with the risk of illness and the viability of healing or disease control. A private report was used to discuss the process of falling ill based on this theory and the path taken until the resolution of the disease, considering the public health reality of the country.