According to Public Health Minister Dr Jose Rodriguez Soldevila, the comments made by Dr Defillo and others reported by DR1 News last Friday were unjust and self-serving. The official denied that the hospitals have become depositories for the sick and dying, and said that Defillo was ?cutting wood from a fallen tree,? a Dominican saying akin to ?hitting someone when they?re down.? Rodriguez Soldevila said that the frustration that Defillo experienced over the failure to implement the social security services that President Mejia wanted so badly has caused him to lash out at the public health service. He also said that at this time many are trying to get into the good graces of the incoming administration. The minister said that criticisms expressed by Defillo conspired to efface the efforts of the PRD party with regard to public health. Soldevila furthermore questioned the application and sensitivity of the doctors who work in the system. According to the official, the doctors will turn over the hospitals to the government next week to produce the image of complete failure.
As a measure of the problem, the State-run hospitals run in the Dominican Republic have a heavy load of service to Haitians. In the regional hospital in Santiago, the hospital reportedly spends over RD$1 million on Haitian patients each year. There were 1,250 births by Haitian women, fully 10% of all the births at the facility. Hospital director Dr Daniel Rivera told reporters that the flow of patients from Haiti has become a serious economic, social and human problem because neither the patients nor those that bring them in contribute ?even a syringe? and often times refuse to even donate blood because of cultural taboos. The report in Hoy also says that Haitian hospitals refer patients to the Cabral y Baez regional facility in Santiago, where consultations given to Haitians number 300 per month. This means that the hospital opens a file on the patient and does all the workups needed to treat the patient. In addition, DR1 News consulted Dr Rivera and discovered that between 300 and 400 Haitians are treated in the emergency rooms of the hospital monthly.