A video published in Listin Diario today makes readers wonder what the government has done with the billions in contracting during the National State of Emergency. The Luis E. Aybar Medical City definitely has not been on the Medina administration’s priority list.
Ironically, in his 27 February 2020 state of the nation speech, President Danilo Medina had announced the renovations at the Luis Eduardo Aybar Medical City, the largest health complex in the Dominican Republic, and most likely in Central America and the Caribbean, would be completed by 10 March 2020. The first case of Covid-19 already had been reported on 1 March 2020. Despite the desperate need for the facility during these Covid-19 times, the Public Health Minister Rafael Sánchez Cárdenas was never able to give a straight answer to journalists’ questions about its opening date.
Now the video in Listin Diario explains why. The mega health center is far from finished. Listin Diario journalists were able to enter and film some of the areas under renovation. The reporters said they were there after being notified that the hospital would be inaugurated on Thursday, 13 August 2020. The inauguration with the presence of President Danilo Medina was suspended.
The construction was initially reported to be a turnkey hospital project that was entrusted to engineer José Ramon Brea, of Carimex, the IBT Group and the Supervisory Office of State Engineering Works (OISOE) at the Presidency of the Republic. The renovations began in 2013. As reported in Diario Libre, in 2018 a new contract to complete the project was handed to CONSMARA-SEMINSA. It brought the contracted cost of the renovations from RD$6.9 billion to RD$14.8 billion, or double the initial budget. The government has not said how much has been invested in the major renovations.
Read more in Spanish:
Listin Diario
CDN
Participación Ciudadana
13 August 2020