Friends for Health in Haiti, Inc. was founded in 2006 by Dr. Catherine Wolf, who, for over ten years had served as a missionary physician and Medical Director of a large mission hospital in south Haiti.  She and longtime friend, Haitian-American nurse Cherlie Severe, decided in 2006 to start this new medical ministry from the ground up, in a very needy mountain area outside the town of Jérémie, on the northern coast of the southern peninsula of Haiti.

They began by doing a need and resource assessment in 16 communities around the clinic site and, on the basis of the medical needs they found, opened an outpatient clinic in August 2007 in a little tin-roofed house that was already on the clinic site.  Since opening its doors in 2007, Centre de Sante de Gatineau (Gatineau Health Center) has served over 12,000 individual patients with nearly 40,000 total patient visits.  Their staff consists of physician and Medical Director Dr. Catherine Wolf, Assistant Director and Nursing Director Cherlie Severe, Haitian nurse Vetelie Charles, Pharmacy Technician Guy-Johns Chevalier, Community Coordinator Gemi Baptiste and his assistant Viel Laurent, Registration Clerk and Chaplain Adrien Jean Jacques, groundskeepers Lubin Clergeau and Marie Degraff and housekeeper Olette Desrolus. 

The medical ministry of Friends for Health in Haiti is a holistic ministry, attempting to meet both the physical and spiritual needs of the patients we serve.  We provide curative care through our outpatient clinic in Gatineau, preventive services through our Water and Sanitation community development program, livelihood support through our hurricane relief supply distribution, animal vaccinations and agricultural support and spiritual ministry through individual counseling with our patients and our partnerships with local churches.