President Luis Abinader announced that the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) is open to financing the construction and operation of two maternity hospitals in Haiti. The locations are yet to be announced.
Years back, the European Union had offered to finance a similar hospital for Haiti, but the project did not materialize for lack of support from the Haitian governments. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of Haitians cross the border to seek medical attention at Dominican public hospitals and receive this for free or very low cost. Haitians enter on market days and then pay people smugglers to get them to the cities for medical care.
Speaking from the Presidential Palace on 16 September 2022 upon his return from meetings in Washington, DC, President Luis Abinader announced that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will finance the construction of two hospitals on the northern and southern border. The President said that he has been working on this project for 16 months. “We even signed with late President Jovenel Moise of Haiti to seek international aid and develop two hospitals located on the Haitian side of the border,” he said.
He added that these are “one in the northern part and another in the southern part, in which we have determined a budget of about 40 million dollars. The IDB and its president Mauricio Claver-Carone and the commission and its main executives committed themselves to lead this project and to look for the funds to build these hospitals and maternity hospitals, so that the thousands of Haitian women who come to the country can have their hospital which would be public and they would organize the legal and permitting part with the Haitian government, said President Abinader.
He pointed out that the IDB committed to donate these two health centers and also to provide for five years of maintenance together with a North American NGO that would manage and operate the hospitals in Haiti.
“This was one of the objectives that we have been seeking for many years to ensure that Haitian women who had difficulties in giving birth in their country would have proper facilities that will also save many lives,” he said.
Listin Diario reports the two hospitals could mean savings of RD$6 billion to the Dominican public health system.
President Luis Abinader met with Mauricio Claver-Carone during his visit to Washington, DC.
“The one who suffers in Haiti at the moment, is the poor people who suffer from violence and shortages. The international community is quite available and what is lacking is a more frank attitude”, said the President.
Likewise, he added, “we guarantee that we are going to give them the greatest protection, regardless of what happens with the situation in Haiti. The Armed Forces, today, guarantee peace on the border, at a high cost for the country. The tragedy in Haiti is for the international community to act. That is why I always advocate when I participate in international conferences”.
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Presidency
Listin Diario
19 September 2022