SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic. From August 11th to the 18th, Dr. Ana Celia Carrero, medical coordinator of the Centro Medico BRA, attended the Annual International HIV/AIDS conference in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Carrero joined a delegation of twenty other Dominican representatives of different organizations that work with HIV/AIDS patients in the country. It was the first …
MONTE PLATA, Dominican Republic, August 18, 2006. Early in the mornings, Centro Medico BRA at Batey Cinco Casas is bustling with sounds of busy receptionists, doctors, nurses, patients chatting and children playing. But in the last two weeks of August, a new and unusual sound was added to the environment. Only a few meters away …
SANTA Santa is 65 years old. She is not HIV positive, but has lost two daughters to AIDS. She and her husband are now the caretakers of four young granddaughters. BRA provides free medical care and support to this family and to all the families affected by the loss of family members to AIDS. Santa …
SELENA At five o’clock in the morning, Selena knocked on Susana’s door crying hysterically and begging her to purchase the bag of clothes and sheets she was carrying. The day before, she had tested positive for HIV and didn’t have any money to get to the capital for treatment. Susana brought her inside, made her …
GISELE, JEANNY, REMY, MARIE Gisele lives with her family just minutes from Batey Cojobal. Her story is like so many of BRA’s HIV/AIDS patients. Dominican-born with Haitian parents, she has spent her life in destitute poverty. She has known that she was HIV positive since she was pregnant with the fifth of her eight children, …
MARISELA Marisela sat in the BRA’s mobile clinic wearing a little pink dress, her skinny arms and legs jutting out at sharp angles from her body. Her hair was brittle and orange from malnutrition. She spoke in a raspy voice and her breath was labored. For months she’d been suffering from constant respiratory infections. Yet …
ESMERALDA Twenty-four year old Esmeralda Pierre has three beautiful, dimple-cheeked children. She was already eight months pregnant with her youngest when she found out she was HIV positive. Later, I accompanied Esmeralda to Altagracia, the public women’s hospital in Santo Domingo to enroll in the national program for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. …
ANDRES The blue baseball cap hung from the corner of his bed, the one he always wore driving passengers around town on his motoconcho—small motorcycle, before the chronic diarrhea and weight loss left him too weak to leave his bed. For an hour, I would encourage him to drink the calorie and protein-rich shake I’d …
