Dominican Health official slams his boss, the President, over death of 11 toddlers

Santo Domingo.- The president of the Health Reform Commission on Thursday surprisingly slammed his boss, president Danilo Medina for having expressed “shock” over the deaths of 11 toddlers at the Robert Reid Cabral Hospital, since in his view, the chief executive has kept the facility as the “Cinderella” of the country’s public health system.

Dr. Humberto Salazar said Medina couldn’t be in shock, as his spokesman Roberto Rodriguez Marchena stated, because the President knows the nation’s health system.

"The one who was in shock, and I saw it in his face, is my friend Roberto Marchena, who has never gone to a public hospital or ever entered to see what happens there, because if he’s shocked by news like that, if he goes to a hospital of the interior, I assure you, that we would have to go and see him, God forbid, at the funeral home," Salazar said.

The official said no one can be in shock from a health care system that has been "clunking" for a long time and where a “limp” social policy being applied. "This is a health system which has had very few mourners for years and where no one wants to hear about the reform which has to be made in the health sector."

Interviewed on Rumba 98.5 FM, Salazar said it’s unfair to place the blame on the hospital’s director, “where the only thing she’s done is fight tooth and nail daily to save the lives of children of poor families.”

"Then the easiest thing is to grab and appoint a commission in Congress and go to Robert Reid, take a stroll with the press to be seen, when the day to day of the hospital system is known only by those of us who are there every day," he said.

He added that Public Health minister Freddy Hidalgo isn’t to blame either, because he has withstood being the budget’s Cinderella for three years.