President-elect Luis Abinader announced on Monday, 20 July 2020 that Vice President Raquel Peña will be coordinating his administration’s Health Cabinet as of 16 August. Abinader explained in a tweet that the Health Cabinet will integrate all the institutions dealing with the health sector, so they head in the same direction.
Abinader also tweeted that Dr. Plutarco Arias will be the Public Health Minister and Dr. Ivelisse Acosta will be Deputy Minister for Collective Health. Arias is a pneumologist at the Unión Medica hospital in Santiago. Unión Médica was one of the first private hospitals to care for Covid-19 patients. From early on, because of the scarcity of PCR tests, the hospital relied on clinical tools to diagnose and treat patients becoming one of the most successful to do so.
Dr. Arias is a graduate of the Pontifical Catholic University Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) with post graduate studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He is president of the National Apnea Pneumologic Sleep Institute, founded in 2013. During the Abinader campaign, he served as director of the health issues. He has been part of the health sector in the Abinader transition commission.
During the government of former President Hipólito Mejía, Arias was deputy minister for Public Health in charge of the 14 Cibao provinces. He also presided the Santiago chapter of the Dominican Medical Association (CDM). He is a founding member and president of the North Zone Pneumological Society.
Dr. Acosta is the president of the Pneumology Medical Society in the Dominican Republic. She was elected in 2019. She has directed the National Tuberculosis Eradication Program.
Other recent appointments to the Abinader cabinet are, in order of their announcement:
Ethics and corruption Office director: Milagros Ortiz Bosch
Minister of the Presidency: Lisandro Macarrulla
Foreign Relations Minister: Roberto Álvarez Gil
Education Minister: Roberto Furcal
Spokesperson for the Presidency: Milagros Germán
Governor of the Central Bank: Hector Valdez Albizu
Economy & Planning Minister: Miguel Ceara Hatton
Hacienda Minister: Jochi Vicente
Superintendent of Banks: Alejandro Fernández Whipple
National Budget director: Jose Rijo Presbot
CEI-RD director: Biviana Riveiro
Economic advisor to the President: Pedro Silverio
Legal Advisor to the President: Antoliano Peralta
Energy & Mines Minister: Antonio Almonte Reynoso
Administrative Minister of the Presidency: José Ignacio Paliza
Defense Minister: Major General Carlos Luciano Díaz Morfa
Head of the Health Cabinet: Vice President-elect Raquel Peña
Public Health Minister: Plutarco Arias
Deputy Minister for Collective Health: Ivelisse Acosta
Executive director Public Procurement Agency: Carlos Pimentel
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
Uno + Uno Teleantillas
Listin Diario
Resumen de Salud
El Dia
21 July 2020