The directors of the Dominican Social Security system made a mistake when they set a date on the general opening of primary health care. The manager of the National Council for Social Security, Rafael Perez Modesto, while taking care not to mention a specific date, said that they would formally put this primary health service into effect this year. Perez Modesto was interviewed by the editors of Diario Libre on the Dialogo Libre program on Sunday, May 12.
“We committed an error by setting a date, by saying: the first of May (of 2012) Primary Care starts, in the middle of an election process, in the middle of a situation where all of the clinics were against it, in the middle of a situation in which the people did not understand what this was,” admitted the official. He said that based on analysis by the Social Security Research, Study and Development Corporation (CIEDESS), “Primary Health Care will be a reality in the country.” The public sector currently has some 1,600 primary health care centers across the country, and it is planning to build 50 more, but Perez Modesto complained that these centers were operating with recent medical school graduates.
The manager recalled, in his talk with Diario Libre editors, that the implementation of this element of the Social Security system has met with strong opposition due to private interests, and this is why he believes that if Primary Health Care had been imposed in an obligatory manner, “today the system would be very strong, solid and advanced.”