Health Care in Haiti: a Constitutional Duty Owed to Citizens, and an Employer-Paid Health Card for Workers
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Canada on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
81 exceptions recorded across 33 countries · none match Canada to Haiti · Access to healthcare
Haiti has no residents' health insurance scheme that a foreigner joins. What the law we read provides is two different things. The Constitution obliges the State to guarantee the right to life and health to all citizens, and separately to provide the means of protecting, maintaining and restoring their health by creating hospitals, health centres and dispensaries; article 54 then says that foreigners on Haitian territory enjoy the same protection as is accorded to Haitians, in accordance with the law. And the Labour Code attaches health provision to employment rather than to residence: every worker must hold a health card within three months of being hired, at the employer's exclusive expense, with the annual examinations carried out by the medical service of OFATMA, the office for work accident, sickness and maternity insurance; and every worker has fifteen days of paid sick leave a year on a medical certificate from the company doctor or a public health service. Access for a foreigner who is not employed is not something we could establish from any document.
At a glance
- Residents' health insurance a foreigner can join
- None found
Nothing in the immigration law or the residence permit procedure provides or requires health cover.
- Health card
- Compulsory within three months of hiring, at the employer's expense
Article 481 of the Labour Code. It covers employees in agricultural, industrial and commercial undertakings, teachers and supervisors in public or private schools, and the staff of private or public clinics and hospitals.
- Who runs the examinations
- OFATMA's medical service, exclusively
Article 482. The card records a chest X-ray, a Kahn test, a rhesus test and blood group, and is renewed annually.
- Paid sick leave
- Fifteen days a year
Article 131, without reduction of salary, pro rata in the first year of service and not cumulative.
- Maternity leave
- Twelve weeks, or six paid by the employer
Articles 320 to 322. The twelve weeks are paid by OFATMA where the woman is registered with it for maternity insurance; until OFATMA brings in a compulsory maternity scheme the employer pays six weeks.
- Medical certificate for the residence permit
- No more than thirty days old
An entry condition on the file, not a health entitlement.
Requirements
- For an employed person: a health card obtained within three months of hiring, paid for by the employer
- Annual examinations through OFATMA's medical service, which alone validates the card
- A medical certificate from the company doctor or a public health service to draw paid sick leave
In detail
A duty owed to citizens, extended by a referral
Article 19 of the Constitution makes it the State's imperative obligation to guarantee the right to life and to health to all citizens without distinction, and article 23 binds it to provide the means - hospitals, health centres, dispensaries - in every territorial collectivity. Both are drafted in terms of citizens. The bridge to foreigners is article 54, which says that foreigners on Haitian territory enjoy the same protection as Haitians, in accordance with the law. That last phrase is doing real work: it defers to legislation, and we did not find legislation giving the health half of it any content. So the constitutional position for a foreign resident is equal treatment in principle and unspecified in practice.
What is actually organised is employment
The concrete machinery in Haitian law attaches to a job, not to residence. Within three months of hiring, an employee must hold a health card, and the Code puts the cost on the employer exclusively. The card records a chest X-ray, a Kahn test, rhesus and blood group, is renewed annually, and only OFATMA's medical service may carry out and validate the examinations. The card itself stays at OFATMA; the worker gets a control certificate and the company doctor a photocopy. None of this is health insurance - it is a fitness-to-work régime - but it is the point at which a worker in Haiti, Haitian or foreign, meets an institution of the health system as of right.
Where the Code stops
Two provisions show the limits. Maternity leave is twelve weeks and the Code says OFATMA pays it whenever the woman is properly registered with the institution for maternity insurance - then adds that the article only applies once OFATMA has brought a compulsory maternity insurance scheme into force, and that until then the employer pays six weeks. A statute that has to say "until the scheme exists" is telling the reader something. Sick leave is fifteen days a year at full salary, on a certificate from the company doctor or a public health service. Beyond employment, the Code has nothing, and we found no instrument establishing how an unemployed resident foreigner obtains care or what it costs.
Country-level policy
On 17 September 2026 Le Moniteur published, as Special No. 47 of its 181st year, a decree of the Council of Ministers instituting a state of emergency over the departments of the Ouest, the Artibonite and the Centre for three months. The Ouest is the department that contains Port-au-Prince, and with it the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration on Avenue John Brown, where residence permits are applied for. The decree's recitals describe a multiform crisis producing a situation of extreme urgency, marked by increased violence from armed gangs and a worrying humanitarian situation threatening the existence of the population and the foundations of the Republic. An earlier decree to the same effect had been published on 2 June 2026, so this is a renewal rather than a first measure. What we hold of the decree is its opening: the copy we could read carries the gazette heading, the title and the recitals and stops before the operative articles, so we cannot say what powers it confers or what it suspends.
Haiti's official journal, Le Moniteur, is still publishing - its Special No. 47 of 17 September 2026 is in these records - but it has no reachable archive of its own, and the Secrétariat Général du Conseil des Ministres, which hosts the government's collection of laws, did not answer a single request from here. The consequence is specific rather than general. Four instruments between them decide most of what a person moving to Haiti needs to know, and none of them could be read. The decree-law of 26 December 1978 on immigration and emigration is the one the immigration directorate itself cites by article number for the residence permit, and the one the law of 2002 names as imposing that permit at its article 30. The decree of 6 November 1984 on Haitian nationality is where the Constitution has pointed since 2011 for the conditions of naturalisation. The Code Fiscal enacted by decree of 20 January 2023 brings the whole tax code together and is published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance as a 244-page image whose only machine-readable text is a watermark reading "ne pas reproduire". And the decree of 13 March 1963 defines which new undertakings give a foreign shareholder an exemption from the work permit.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Canada
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«L'État est astreint à l'obligation d'assurer à tous
> les citoyens dans toutes les collectivités territoriales les moyens
> appropriés pour garantir la protection, le maintien et le rétablissement
> de leur santé par la création d'hôpitaux, de centres
> de santé et de dispensaires.»Our translation - not official
The State is bound by the obligation to provide to all citizens in every territorial collectivity the appropriate means of guaranteeing the protection, maintenance and restoration of their health, through the creation of hospitals, health centres and dispensaries.
The duty is expressed towards citizens. Article 54 is what carries it across to foreigners, and it does so "conformément à la loi".
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Jean-Pierre Maury's constitutional library at the University of Perpignan, which publishes the French text of the Constitution of Haiti of 29 March 1987 in its version amended on 9 May 2011, with every abrogated article struck through in place. It is used here because no Haitian state host we could reach serves the amended Constitution: the Government's own copy is the 1987 original.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: An academic transcription, not a gazette. It is not the authentic text, it carries no date of consolidation, and the strike-through marking of abrogated articles is the editor's apparatus rather than the legislator's. Quotations taken from it carry the blockquote markers and the strike-through tildes of the capture. It must be replaced the moment a Haitian state copy of the amended Constitution becomes reachable. Its reading of the amendments was cross-checked here against the Comparative Constitutions Project's annotated edition and the two agree on which articles were abrogated.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«Les étrangers qui se trouvent sur le territoire de la République
> bénéficient de la même protection que celle qui est
> accordée aux Haïtiens, conformément à la loi.»Our translation - not official
Foreigners who are on the territory of the Republic enjoy the same protection as that accorded to Haitians, in accordance with the law.
A referral to legislation rather than a self-executing entitlement. We did not find the legislation that gives it content for health care.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Jean-Pierre Maury's constitutional library at the University of Perpignan, which publishes the French text of the Constitution of Haiti of 29 March 1987 in its version amended on 9 May 2011, with every abrogated article struck through in place. It is used here because no Haitian state host we could reach serves the amended Constitution: the Government's own copy is the 1987 original.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: An academic transcription, not a gazette. It is not the authentic text, it carries no date of consolidation, and the strike-through marking of abrogated articles is the editor's apparatus rather than the legislator's. Quotations taken from it carry the blockquote markers and the strike-through tildes of the capture. It must be replaced the moment a Haitian state copy of the amended Constitution becomes reachable. Its reading of the amendments was cross-checked here against the Comparative Constitutions Project's annotated edition and the two agree on which articles were abrogated.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«Article 481. Tous les travailleurs employés dans les entreprises agricoles,
industrielles et commerciales, et en général tout travailleur manuel ou intellectuel qui
prête, moyennant une rétribution, ses services à un employeur en vertu d'un contrat de
travail exprès ou tacite, les professeurs et surveillants des établissements
d'enseignement public ou privé, le personnel des cliniques et hôpitaux privés ou
publics doivent, dans les trois mois de leur embauchage, être munis d'une carte de
santé qui est exclusivement à la charge de l'employeur.»Our translation - not official
All workers employed in agricultural, industrial and commercial undertakings, and in general every manual or intellectual worker who, for remuneration, lends his services to an employer under an express or tacit contract of employment, teachers and supervisors in public or private teaching establishments, and the staff of private or public clinics and hospitals must, within three months of being hired, hold a health card which is exclusively at the employer's charge.
Nationality is not a condition. A foreign employee is inside this article on the same terms as a Haitian one.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
A Haiti document archive holding about five thousand items - central bank circulars, customs statistics, electoral council decrees, and facsimiles of Le Moniteur going back to 1959. Used here because Haiti's own law collection at sgcm.gouv.ht would not answer a single request and Le Moniteur has no reachable archive of its own. What it serves for the instruments quoted here is the gazette's or the State Printing Office's own page image, so the artefact is the State's even though the host is not.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It is not the publisher of record and must never be cited where a Haitian government host serves the same file. It does no amendment tracking, so nothing taken from it is evidence that a text is current - the 1959 immigration law quoted here is known to have been overtaken at least in part by a 1978 decree-law we could not obtain. Its catalogue metadata is not reliable: it dates the immigration law "8 juillet 1959" where the document's own title page says 8 December 1959, and it attributes the Labour Code to the justice ministry when the PDF carries haitijustice.com as a watermark on every page. That Labour Code edition also replaces four articles - 426, 483, 505 and 507 to 510 - with a bracketed editorial summary instead of their text, so it cannot support a claim that the Code is silent on something.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Article 482. La carte de santé mentionnera notamment les résultats des examens
suivants: rayon X pulmonaire, Kahn, Rhx, groupe sanguin. Les examens prévus ci-
dessus se feront annuellement par le service médical de l'OFATMA qui est le seul
organisme chargé du contrôle des examens susmentionnés requis pour délivrance de
la carte de santé et sa validation.»Our translation - not official
The health card shall record in particular the results of the following examinations: pulmonary X-ray, Kahn, rhesus, blood group. The examinations provided for above shall be carried out annually by the medical service of OFATMA, which is the sole body responsible for controlling the said examinations required for the issue and validation of the health card.
OFATMA appears here as a testing monopoly rather than as an insurer. The Code's insurance provisions for maternity are conditional on OFATMA bringing a scheme into force.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
A Haiti document archive holding about five thousand items - central bank circulars, customs statistics, electoral council decrees, and facsimiles of Le Moniteur going back to 1959. Used here because Haiti's own law collection at sgcm.gouv.ht would not answer a single request and Le Moniteur has no reachable archive of its own. What it serves for the instruments quoted here is the gazette's or the State Printing Office's own page image, so the artefact is the State's even though the host is not.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It is not the publisher of record and must never be cited where a Haitian government host serves the same file. It does no amendment tracking, so nothing taken from it is evidence that a text is current - the 1959 immigration law quoted here is known to have been overtaken at least in part by a 1978 decree-law we could not obtain. Its catalogue metadata is not reliable: it dates the immigration law "8 juillet 1959" where the document's own title page says 8 December 1959, and it attributes the Labour Code to the justice ministry when the PDF carries haitijustice.com as a watermark on every page. That Labour Code edition also replaces four articles - 426, 483, 505 and 507 to 510 - with a bracketed editorial summary instead of their text, so it cannot support a claim that the Code is silent on something.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Article 131. Le travailleur a droit à un nombre total de quinze jours de congé de
maladie par an sans diminution de salaire. Pour en bénéficier, le travailleur devra
soumettre un certificat médical émanant du médecin de l'entreprise ou d'un service de
santé publique.»Our translation - not official
The worker is entitled to a total of fifteen days of sick leave a year without reduction of salary. To benefit from it the worker must submit a medical certificate from the company doctor or from a public health service.
The certificate may come from a public health service, which is the only point at which the Code assumes a worker has access to one.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
A Haiti document archive holding about five thousand items - central bank circulars, customs statistics, electoral council decrees, and facsimiles of Le Moniteur going back to 1959. Used here because Haiti's own law collection at sgcm.gouv.ht would not answer a single request and Le Moniteur has no reachable archive of its own. What it serves for the instruments quoted here is the gazette's or the State Printing Office's own page image, so the artefact is the State's even though the host is not.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It is not the publisher of record and must never be cited where a Haitian government host serves the same file. It does no amendment tracking, so nothing taken from it is evidence that a text is current - the 1959 immigration law quoted here is known to have been overtaken at least in part by a 1978 decree-law we could not obtain. Its catalogue metadata is not reliable: it dates the immigration law "8 juillet 1959" where the document's own title page says 8 December 1959, and it attributes the Labour Code to the justice ministry when the PDF carries haitijustice.com as a watermark on every page. That Labour Code edition also replaces four articles - 426, 483, 505 and 507 to 510 - with a bracketed editorial summary instead of their text, so it cannot support a claim that the Code is silent on something.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This record rests on articles 19, 22, 23 and 54 of the Constitution as amended in 2011 and on articles 131, 320 to 322 and 481 to 487 of the Code du travail. It does not rest on any publication of the Ministry of Public Health and Population or of OFATMA, because we could not read one.
The edition of the Code we read prints article 483, which sets the charge for the health card, as the words "[Taxe perçue.]" in square brackets instead of its text. The amount is therefore not stated here, and the elision is the edition's rather than the legislator's.
Nothing in this record says what care a foreign resident can actually obtain in Haiti today, at what price, or where. The country has been under a state of emergency covering the department that contains Port-au-Prince, and the operation of hospitals is not something a statute can evidence.
The Government's own copy of the Constitution that we could reach is the 1987 original as printed in Le Moniteur No. 36 of 28 April 1987. It is a scan whose text layer is a machine recognition and prints, among other things, "distinbtion" for distinction, "H~i tüme" for Haïtiens and "candi tians" for conditions. Quotations from it are left exactly as the layer has them, and the amended text of 2011 is quoted from a separate source because this one predates the amendments.
- reportsConstitution du 29 mars 1987, version amendée le 9 mai 2011
Digithèque MJP, Université de Perpignan
About this source
Jean-Pierre Maury's constitutional library at the University of Perpignan, which publishes the French text of the Constitution of Haiti of 29 March 1987 in its version amended on 9 May 2011, with every abrogated article struck through in place. It is used here because no Haitian state host we could reach serves the amended Constitution: the Government's own copy is the 1987 original.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: An academic transcription, not a gazette. It is not the authentic text, it carries no date of consolidation, and the strike-through marking of abrogated articles is the editor's apparatus rather than the legislator's. Quotations taken from it carry the blockquote markers and the strike-through tildes of the capture. It must be replaced the moment a Haitian state copy of the amended Constitution becomes reachable. Its reading of the amendments was cross-checked here against the Comparative Constitutions Project's annotated edition and the two agree on which articles were abrogated.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- reportsCode du travail - Décret du 24 février 1984 et Loi du 5 juin 2003 actualisant le Code du travail du 12 septembre 1961
HaitiDocs (edition watermarked www.haitijustice.com)
About this source
A Haiti document archive holding about five thousand items - central bank circulars, customs statistics, electoral council decrees, and facsimiles of Le Moniteur going back to 1959. Used here because Haiti's own law collection at sgcm.gouv.ht would not answer a single request and Le Moniteur has no reachable archive of its own. What it serves for the instruments quoted here is the gazette's or the State Printing Office's own page image, so the artefact is the State's even though the host is not.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It is not the publisher of record and must never be cited where a Haitian government host serves the same file. It does no amendment tracking, so nothing taken from it is evidence that a text is current - the 1959 immigration law quoted here is known to have been overtaken at least in part by a 1978 decree-law we could not obtain. Its catalogue metadata is not reliable: it dates the immigration law "8 juillet 1959" where the document's own title page says 8 December 1959, and it attributes the Labour Code to the justice ministry when the PDF carries haitijustice.com as a watermark on every page. That Labour Code edition also replaces four articles - 426, 483, 505 and 507 to 510 - with a bracketed editorial summary instead of their text, so it cannot support a claim that the Code is silent on something.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- issuesConstitution de la République d'Haïti du 29 mars 1987, Le Moniteur No. 36 du 28 avril 1987
Ministère de l'Économie et des Finances d'Haïti - portail budget
About this source
The Haitian finance ministry's budget portal, which also hosts gazette issues. It serves the Constitution of 29 March 1987 as printed in Le Moniteur No. 36 of 28 April 1987, which is the only copy of the Constitution on a Haitian state host that we could reach.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: The constitutional text it serves is the 1987 original and does not carry the amendments made by the constitutional law of 9 May 2011, published 19 June 2012 - which abrogated five articles of Title II, including the prohibition on dual nationality and the five-year naturalisation rule. It must never be cited for the Constitution as it now stands. It is also a scan whose text layer is a machine recognition: it prints "distinbtion" for distinction, "H~i tüme" for Haïtiens and "candi tians" for conditions, and quotations from it carry those mistakes.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source