President Hipolito Mejia told El Caribe newspaper reporters covering the public health system breakdown that to label the situation a crisis is a lie. ?It is false, it is a lie, it is a ?pendejada? [ploy to cause trouble],? he proclaimed. Meanwhile, the director of the Dominican Institute of Social Security (IDSS) , Dr. William Jana admitted to El Caribe that he had never seen ?a crisis of this magnitude.? According to Mejia, however, the alleged shortages of hospital materials, resources to purchase oxygen and fuel to run the alternate power plants reported in the press are nothing but attempts of the Dominican Medical College to perpetrate blackmail. The DMC yesterday began a 48-hour work stoppage at public facilities. President Mejia spoke while in Monsenor Nouel province yesterday to inaugurate 10 public works, including the remodeling of the Public Hospital Pedro E. Marchena. For the benefit of journalists, Mejia gave instructions to the Programa de Medicamentos Esenciales to restock the 150 hospitals and 23 IDSS hospitals.
The president of the Dominican Medical College, Dr. Waldo Ariel Suero has stated that the public health system is in a state of total collapse.
El Caribe newspaper points out that Public Health Minister Jose Rodriguez Soldevila was unavailable for comment, as he is participating in a regional public health meeting in a hotel in the Southeast.
In a commentary on its page 2, El Caribe newspaper says that the minister has been shown the utmost of indifference to the plight of poor Dominicans. ?If his previous term during the government of Antonio Guzman [1978-82] became anthological for his statement of how to get rid of malaria [he then suggested every Dominican kill three mosquitos], the present has historic rivets as a monument to indifference,? says El Caribe.