SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic. A catchy bachata tittled “Amor de Batey,” also the theme song of a mini-telenovela depicting the story of a batey couple, is part of PSI’s (Population Services International) latest collaborative project to reduce STDs and HIV/AIDS in the bateyes of the Dominican Republic. To carry out this project, PSI is teaming up with several organizations with an established presence in batey communities all over the country. BRA Dominicana is one of them, currently working in the region of Monte Plata. Responding to the alarming rate of HIV infection among the batey population (5-13% as compared to the national average of only 1%), PSI conducted a thorough investigation of condom use among adults between 20 and 49 years. The findings of this research became pillars of this multidisciplinary initiative which aims to fight HIV/AIDS by encouraging a decrease in the number of sexual partners while also fomenting the use of condoms correctly and consistently. During the next two years BRA will be conducting a plethora of educational activities such as concerts and mural painting as well as promoting condom sales through contests and visits to local stores in the bateyes. “It is unlikely that ‘Amor de Batey’ will replace the voices of famous bachateros such as Frank Reyes or Zacarias Ferreira in the radio or the dance floor,” said Maria Virtudes Berroa , BRA Dominicana’s Executive Director. But Berroa added that the urgent message behind this song and PSI’s project with BRA will surely resonate among bateyanos and hopefully bring not only awareness of the HIV/AIDS problematic but real seeds of change.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, July 30, 2006. Since 2005, the Batey Relief Alliance developed, in collaboration with the USAID, Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative and the Dominican Ministry of Health’s Digecitts, a comprehensive HIV/AIDS project delivering free testing, medical consults, medical services, ARVs, pre and post psychoemotional assistance, nutrition and clothing for impoverished AIDS sufferers, orphaned/vulnerable children and pregnant women living inside the bateyes of the Monte Plata province.

In two recent articles, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Disease Control Priorities singled out and featured BRA’s model HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program inside the bateyes of the Dominican Republic.

Science Magazine too cited BRA’s HIV/AIDS work as one of most innovative in the fight against AIDS in the Dominican Republic. Click HERE for more details. The magazine also documented BRA’s HIV/AIDS work through videos and photos. For photos, click on AIDS Photo Essay, Caribbean Slide (Dominican Republic) # 5, 6. Click Special VIDEO Presentation for more details. Then click Navigate the Main Map, click the Dominican Republic for video on the bateyes. Help BRA fight AIDS in the Dominican Republic’s bateyes. Mail your tax-deductible gift payable to Batey Relief Alliance at P.O. Box 300565, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11230. You may also donate ONLINE. For more details, contact Ulrick Gaillard at 917.627.5026.

QUALITY HEALTHCARE INSIDE BATEY CINCO CASAS— BRA Medical Center

MONTE PLATA, Dominican Republic, June 5, 2006 — The Batey Cinco Casas, located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Santo Domingo, is experiencing a social phenomenon never before seen, not even when sugar cane production was at the center of the Dominican Republic’s economy after the foundation in 1517 of the Boca de Nigua plantation in San Cristobal. This was the first plantation to produce sugar at the international level.

For the first time in the history of sugar cane plantations, a modern medical facility has been built in order to attend to the healthcare needs of generations of Haitian plantation workers who, during the glorious years of this country’s sugar industry, left their youth among sugar mills, musical boxes and oxen.

Four hundred and eighty nine years after the sugar industry came alive in the country, living conditions for a new generation of workers hadn’t changed much. However, five months ago, with the help of the Bill Clinton Foundation, the U.S. government, BRA Dominicana, the Lions Clubs and the Dominican Republic’s State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal del Azúcar or CEA), the BRA Medical Center was built. This is the first medical facility of its kind to have been built inside a batey.

The building structure contrasts with its surroundings, a community made up of modest homes, far away from each other, with only one access road, lacking in basic services (potable water and electricity) and encircled by a wall of sterile sugar cane.

The people in this community have few choices to make a living; some work on conucos (small plots of lands), others work driving motoconchos (motorcycles used for transport services), and the youngest members of the community migrate to the city to work in construction. Therefore, the idea of building a health center has become a ray of hope for the residents of this community and others nearby.

Although the center has not been officially inaugurated –BRA Dominicana’s executives are waiting for former US President Bill Clinton to be available—it has been operating for the past five months. According to the center’s director, Dr. Ana Celia Carrero, the staff receives between 50 to 60 patients daily, or about 1,500 every month. Some patients travel from 40 surrounding communities, from the province of Sánchez Ramírez and even from Villa Mella, looking for healthcare services that are not only almost free of charge but also humane.

According to Dr. Carrero, 95% of patients seen at the center are suffering from scabies and parasites due to lack of potable water and the unhealthy conditions in which most of the population lives.

The incidence of these diseases is followed by those of dermatitis and intestinal ailments such as amebas and giardia. Adults also suffer from eye and heart disease.

Felipe Carela Acevedo, 77 years old, serves to illustrate this story. Mr. Carela had a general checkup last Friday. Born in Pantoja, he had traveled from Batey La Mina where he has lived for the past 60 years and worked the land. When he was leaving the medical center, he showed with pride, to HOY reporters, the glasses he received that day. He had suffered from cataracts for years but never had a place to go to receive medical help.

Additional Information about BRA’s medical center:
§ General medicine consults cost RD$70. Medicines are free of charge.
§ Ophthalmologic consults are RD$200 and glasses are given free of charge.
§ HIV/AIDS patients are offered counseling and treatment with free antiretroviral drugs.
§ Quick HIV tests are also available, with a 95% accuracy rate.
§ Clinic visit hours are between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
§ Currently there are five medical doctors and 15 volunteers onsite.

The center has modern equipment, including autorefractors, lensometers, centrifuges, microcentrifuges, microscopes and Nebulizers, and offers tests such as sonograms, electrocardiograms and echocardiograms.

HIV/AIDS: A growing problem in the Monte Plata bateyes
Among a population of 3,000 people, 150 HIV-positive cases have been detected in five months
Por Margarita Quiroz
Translated by Alejandra Castaneda

Together with the opening of the medical center, its directors have also begun implementing an HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program to serve HIV-positive patients. In only five months, the program has detected 150 cases among a population of approximately 3,000 people.

This alarming situation is due, according to Ms. Virtudes Berroa, to married men having to leave their households to work in the city during the week, and sometimes for months, and fulfilling their sexual needs with infected women. In this way the men are infected by the virus and end up transmitting it to their wives at home.

The 150 HIV-positive patients recently identified are currently undergoing antiretroviral drug treatment as well as attending pre- and post-counseling sessions.

In order to identify HIV-infected patients, the center employs 60 health promoters who carry out home visits in 40 bateyes and other nearby communities. The goal is to perform preventative work and detect infected patients with the use of quick-test methods. Later, patients are taken to the medical center where another test is performed in order to confirm the first result. If the second test is also positive, the patient is offered pre- and post-counseling sessions as well as antiretroviral drug treatment.

Why the need for a medical center in the Batey Cinco Casas?
As stated by Virtudes Berroa, Executive Director of BRA Dominicana, the idea of building a medical center inside a batey arose from the great need for healthcare that exists in these communities and, at the same time, to serve as an example for other institutions.

The idea for this project is the brainchild of Ulrick Gaillard, a Haitian who has lived in the United States for years and who had visited the Dominican Republic to write a book about the Haitians and Dominican situation. When he saw the living conditions in the bateyes, he concluded that “a book wouldn’t save the lives of the people.” After returning to the U.S., he founded the Batey Relief Alliance. Years later, in 1998, he also founded BRA Dominicana with the mission to help create a productive and self-sufficient environment for the country’s most vulnerable populations.

In order to build the BRA Medical Center at Batey Cinco Casas, Gaillard pitched the project to several international agencies and also asked for help from the former Dominican’s Sugar State Council administration. The state agency donated a 3,400-meter lot, a lot that during the 1970s had been used to provide housing for hundreds of Haitian sugar cane plantation workers. Building the medical center came at a cost of 300,000 USD and five million dollars more in in-kind donated medical equipment and medicines. The center is housed inside a 200,000-meter building structure with the rest of the lot being occupied by a parking area, a garden and a conuco.

The Batey Cinco Casas is constituted by 30 homes (with about 100 families) but also serves as a meeting point for about 40 more bateyes and other rural communities, including El Bosque, Cruce de la Jagua, La Jagua, Triple Ozama, La Mina, El Caño, El Dean, Bosque Arriba and Bosque Abajo. In other words, the medical center offers healthcare services to a total of more than 3,000 families.

The services
The center complex has 14 medical clinics, an emergency care area, another for ophthalmologic services, odontology room, laboratory, pharmacy, warehouse, a conference room, an ambulance and a three-bedroom home for volunteer housing. The volunteer staff is composed of Canadians, Americans and Dominicans who travel every week or year to the area to participate in either healthcare or education missions. Currently there is also a children’s entertainment/play area being built with the aim to provide a practical alternative for mothers who need to visit the center but don’t have anyone with whom to leave their children.

The center, which operates between the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., also offers services such as PAP smear tests, general medicine and pediatric consults, sonograms and specialized attention to HIV/AIDS patients.

By MARGARITA QUIROZ
HOY Newspaper Section C Vivir pp. 1 and 6
Dominican Republic
Translated by Alejandra Castaneda
For The Batey Relief Alliance: www.bateyrelief.org

For the full story in Spanish, CLICK HERE.