16 October, 2006
QUALITY HEALTHCARE INSIDE BATEY CINCO CASAS— BRA Medical Center
MONTE PLATA, Dominican Republic, June 5, 2006 — The Batey Cinco Casas, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Santo Domingo, is experiencing a social phenomenon never before seen, not even when sugar cane production was at the center of the Dominican Republic’s economy after the foundation in 1517 of the Boca de Nigua plantation in San Cristobal. This was the first plantation to produce sugar at the international level.
For the first time in the history of sugar cane plantations, a modern medical facility has been built in order to attend to the healthcare needs of generations of Haitian plantation workers who, during the glorious years of this country’s sugar industry, left their youth among sugar mills, musical boxes and oxen.
Four hundred and eighty nine years after the sugar industry came alive in the country, living conditions for a new generation of workers hadn’t changed much. However, five months ago, with the help of the Bill Clinton Foundation, the U.S. government, BRA Dominicana, the Lions Clubs and the Dominican Republic’s State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal del Azúcar or CEA), the BRA Medical Center was built. This is the first medical facility of its kind to have been built inside a batey.
The building structure contrasts with its surroundings, a community made up of modest homes, far away from each other, with only one access road, lacking in basic services (potable water and electricity) and encircled by a wall of sterile sugar cane.
The people in this community have few choices to make a living; some work on conucos (small plots of lands), others work driving motoconchos (motorcycles used for transport services), and the youngest members of the community migrate to the city to work in construction. Therefore, the idea of building a health center has become a ray of hope for the residents of this community and others nearby.
Although the center has not been officially inaugurated –BRA Dominicana’s executives are waiting for former US President Bill Clinton to be available—it has been operating for the past five months. According to the center’s director, Dr. Ana Celia Carrero, the staff receives between 50 to 60 patients daily, or about 1,500 every month. Some patients travel from 40 surrounding communities, from the province of Sánchez Ramírez and even from Villa Mella, looking for healthcare services that are not only almost free of charge but also humane.
According to Dr. Carrero, 95% of patients seen at the center are suffering from scabies and parasites due to lack of potable water and the unhealthy conditions in which most of the population lives.
The incidence of these diseases is followed by those of dermatitis and intestinal ailments such as amebas and giardia. Adults also suffer from eye and heart disease.
Felipe Carela Acevedo, 77 years old, serves to illustrate this story. Mr. Carela had a general checkup last Friday. Born in Pantoja, he had traveled from Batey La Mina where he has lived for the past 60 years and worked the land. When he was leaving the medical center, he showed with pride, to HOY reporters, the glasses he received that day. He had suffered from cataracts for years but never had a place to go to receive medical help.
Additional Information about BRA’s medical center:
§ General medicine consults cost RD$70. Medicines are free of charge.
§ Ophthalmologic consults are RD$200 and glasses are given free of charge.
§ HIV/AIDS patients are offered counseling and treatment with free antiretroviral drugs.
§ Quick HIV tests are also available, with a 95% accuracy rate.
§ Clinic visit hours are between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
§ Currently there are five medical doctors and 15 volunteers onsite.
The center has modern equipment, including autorefractors, lensometers, centrifuges, microcentrifuges, microscopes and Nebulizers, and offers tests such as sonograms, electrocardiograms and echocardiograms.
HIV/AIDS: A growing problem in the Monte Plata bateyes
Among a population of 3,000 people, 150 HIV-positive cases have been detected in five months
Por Margarita Quiroz
Translated by Alejandra Castaneda
Together with the opening of the medical center, its directors have also begun implementing an HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program to serve HIV-positive patients. In only five months, the program has detected 150 cases among a population of approximately 3,000 people.
This alarming situation is due, according to Ms. Virtudes Berroa, to married men having to leave their households to work in the city during the week, and sometimes for months, and fulfilling their sexual needs with infected women. In this way the men are infected by the virus and end up transmitting it to their wives at home.
The 150 HIV-positive patients recently identified are currently undergoing antiretroviral drug treatment as well as attending pre- and post-counseling sessions.
In order to identify HIV-infected patients, the center employs 60 health promoters who carry out home visits in 40 bateyes and other nearby communities. The goal is to perform preventative work and detect infected patients with the use of quick-test methods. Later, patients are taken to the medical center where another test is performed in order to confirm the first result. If the second test is also positive, the patient is offered pre- and post-counseling sessions as well as antiretroviral drug treatment.
Why the need for a medical center in the Batey Cinco Casas?
As stated by Virtudes Berroa, Executive Director of BRA Dominicana, the idea of building a medical center inside a batey arose from the great need for healthcare that exists in these communities and, at the same time, to serve as an example for other institutions.
The idea for this project is the brainchild of Ulrick Gaillard, a Haitian who has lived in the United States for years and who had visited the Dominican Republic to write a book about the Haitians and Dominican situation. When he saw the living conditions in the bateyes, he concluded that “a book wouldn’t save the lives of the people.” After returning to the U.S., he founded the Batey Relief Alliance. Years later, in 1998, he also founded BRA Dominicana with the mission to help create a productive and self-sufficient environment for the country’s most vulnerable populations.
In order to build the BRA Medical Center at Batey Cinco Casas, Gaillard pitched the project to several international agencies and also asked for help from the former Dominican’s Sugar State Council administration. The state agency donated a 3,400-meter lot, a lot that during the 1970s had been used to provide housing for hundreds of Haitian sugar cane plantation workers. Building the medical center came at a cost of 300,000 USD and five million dollars more in in-kind donated medical equipment and medicines. The center is housed inside a 200,000-meter building structure with the rest of the lot being occupied by a parking area, a garden and a conuco.
The Batey Cinco Casas is constituted by 30 homes (with about 100 families) but also serves as a meeting point for about 40 more bateyes and other rural communities, including El Bosque, Cruce de la Jagua, La Jagua, Triple Ozama, La Mina, El Caño, El Dean, Bosque Arriba and Bosque Abajo. In other words, the medical center offers healthcare services to a total of more than 3,000 families.
The services
The center complex has 14 medical clinics, an emergency care area, another for ophthalmologic services, odontology room, laboratory, pharmacy, warehouse, a conference room, an ambulance and a three-bedroom home for volunteer housing. The volunteer staff is composed of Canadians, Americans and Dominicans who travel every week or year to the area to participate in either healthcare or education missions. Currently there is also a children’s entertainment/play area being built with the aim to provide a practical alternative for mothers who need to visit the center but don’t have anyone with whom to leave their children.
The center, which operates between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., also offers services such as PAP smear tests, general medicine and pediatric consults, sonograms and specialized attention to HIV/AIDS patients.
By MARGARITA QUIROZ
HOY Newspaper Section C Vivir pp. 1 and 6
Dominican Republic
Translated by Alejandra Castaneda
For The Batey Relief Alliance: www.bateyrelief.org
For the full story in Spanish, CLICK HERE.
