The outgoing president of the Dominican Medical Association (CMD), Dr. Waldo Ariel Suero, told reporters that at the nation’s largest maternity hospital, La Altagracia, in Santo Domingo, nearly a dozen newborn babies passed away between Friday and Monday. He blamed the deaths on the lack of sanitary conditions at the hospital. He criticized that while this was happening, President Danilo Medina was receiving in his office at the Presidential Palace, a person he called “a witch doctor” (Nigerian prophet TB Joshua) instead of meeting with the health sector in order to discuss the sanitary issues and find some way out of the existing situation and put a stop to the high rate of infant mortality in this country. The Medina administration also spent hundreds of thousands of pesos to transport Joshua fans to the Felix Sanchez Olympic Stadium to seek heeling with the evangelic pastor.
So far this year health authorities have registered 2,424 infant deaths (infants of less than 28 days of age), the great majority of complications due to premature births. The infant mortality rate for the Dominican Republic is 25 per 1,000 live births.
The Minister of Public Health, Dr. Altagracia Guzman Marcelino has said “this is a major health challenge, both of public and private sectors…” The infant mortality rate will be one of the central issues of the 10 Year Plan for Health 2018 – 2028 that the Ministry of Public Health plans to carry out.
The high infant mortality in the Dominican Republic can be attributed, in part, by the large number of adolescent births, and the large number of undocumented Haitian who come to give birth in the country. Most of the expectant mothers arrive from Haiti to the hospital without previous physician records, and many are diagnosed as having high-risk pregnancies.
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Diario Libre
29 November 2017
