Haitian mass migration: Uniformed Service medical support, May 1992

Beginning in November 1991, the United States Department of Defense established a Joint Task Force (JTF) to deal with the mass migration of Haitians. During the next 9 months, pending a determination of their immigration status, 34,000 Haitians were managed by uniformed service personnel at a temporary camp facility at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. To meet the urgent clinical and public health needs of this population, the JTF developed a camp medical system. This article describes the system of uniformed service medical support for the Haitians at the Guantanamo Bay facility during May 1992, the busiest month of the operation, when 11,400 Haitians (34% of the total) arrived.