The use of public force was necessary to remove the former president of the Cibao Oncology Center.
Héctor Antonio Lora Cruceta was appointed president of the Board of Directors and the Board of Trustees that administers the Cibao Regional Cancer Institute (IORC) on October 9, 2018, for a term of only two years. However, he remained illegally for seven years, and it was necessary to use force to remove him from the institution.
Attempts to stay in the “nest”
Given Lora Cruceta’s resistance to leaving the position and after his five-year illegal stay, on October 6, 2025, in accordance with the statutes of the Board of Trustees, an Extraordinary General Assembly was convened in which, unanimously, a new Board of Directors was elected, headed by Dr. Iván Alexis Mercader Mateo.
However, the man now accused of leading a network that allegedly diverted millions of pesos intended for low-income cancer patients filed a series of appeals that delayed his departure from the IORC until he and his other accomplices on the board he chaired were arrested during Operation Oncol4 and brought to justice.
They seize the Board of Trustees’ assets.
Claiming a supposed representation of the entity that they no longer held, Lora Cruceta, his ex-wife Dilcia Vargas Sánchez, Thelma Sadi Rodríguez Báez, and Yanet Rodríguez, who were also members of the Board of Trustees, filed a lawsuit on October 23, 2025, seeking the annulment of the Extraordinary General Assembly held on October 6.
On the 30th of the same month, they initiated a civil lawsuit seeking the suspension of said assembly and the appointment of judicial sequestration.
Likewise, on November 7, through a bailiff’s act, they proceeded to obstruct the delivery of securities of the Cibaeño Cancer Foundation to financial entities such as the BHD and Reservas banks, the La Altagracia Cooperative, as well as to any other institution or persons, seriously affecting the normal functioning of the non-profit entity.
It was on October 15, 2025, that, finally, given the refusal of the accused Lora Cruceta and the members of his board to vacate the facilities of the Patronato, it became necessary to request the assistance of the public force to proceed with their material expulsion from said facilities.
According to the file requesting coercive measures against the network led by Lora Cruceta, “this action proved indispensable, since the accused and the other members of his board had prevented, until that moment, the installation of the Board of Directors legitimately elected on October 6, 2025, made up of Dr. Iván Alexis Mercader Mateo, Dr. Naly Antonia Cruz Ventura, Nicolás Edmundo de Jesús Guillén Guzmán, Edilma Inés Rodríguez Vargas and Radhamés José Rosado Sánchez.”
Was this a pair position? If so, why continue to pay for 7 years??? Most people aren’t going to hang around and do work unpaid. If it was an unpaid position, there was no way to stop him from entering the building? I assume he didn’t sleep there.