The director of the Instituto Dominicano de Seguro Social (IDSS), Dr. Julian Serulle Ramia, told the newspaper Hoy that he will resign if the institution is not back on its financial feet in six months. Dr. Serulle said that the IDSS hospitals, which are affiliated with government institutions and many private enterprises, are in dire financial straits due to many irregularities under previous administrations, and has ordered strict control over budgets and the tracking of expenditure. He attacked the practice of having doctors on the payroll who never appeared, including surgeons who were receiving checks for working at hospitals that did not even conduct operations.
Dr. Serulle has also begun a re-supplying of some of the hospitals with badly needed medicine, as has Dr. Erasmo Vasquez in the medical centers under the Ministry of Public Health.