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Programs l Health
 
The Dominican Foundation is dedicated to health projects that are directed towards improving health awareness and prevention, offering access to professional medical attention, and promoting a healthy environment.

Projects include HIV/AIDS awareness, the construction of aqueducts and water systems, the construction of latrines, medical missions that provide professional medical attention and surgery, malnutrition alleviation, vaccinations, trash recollection, organizing and training health promoters, community clean-up activities, among others.

In Santo Domingo, 37.7% suffer form acute respiratory infections, 10.3% with fever, 22.2% suffering from diarrhea, and 24.2% from eye and skin conditions.

Maternal Child Healthcare

The Dominican Foundation and our partner IDDI (Dominican Institute for Integral Development) is greatly committed to the concept of Maternal Child Healthcare. The objective of this program is to establish an integrated and participatory health model that reduces mortality and morbidity in children under five and women of fertile age, while involving the community in its own development.

Why is this program important?

Similar to other countries of the Third World, the Dominican Republic is suffering from the consequences of a massive migration of its population to urban areas. At present, 55% of Dominicans live in urban centers, and the number increases annually by 6.3% Santo Domingo is the primary destination of this migration with 27% of the country's population at date, and with an estimated population of approximately 4 million by the year 2000.

Of this population, 64% live in marginal areas, occupying only 20% of its geographical area. The marginal communities grow at an unprecedented rate at close to 10% annually and lack organized service, such as electricity, drinking water, drainage and sewers, and disposal of human and domestic waste, etc. The growth of these communities has proceeded in a completely chaotic manner, and, as a result, the social, economic, cultural, and physical life of its inhabitants is also characterized by chaos and anarchy

One of the most alarming factors in these marginal communities is the poor health status which especially affects the population of young children, the most vulnerable group. Past studies conducted in Santo Domingo have noted that 77.4% of children surveyed in the Capital were ill, 37.7% suffering form acute respiratory infections, 10.3% with fever, 22.2% suffering from diarrhea, and 24.2% from eye and skin conditions.

The conventional medical services for these ill children were very deficient: 65.6% received no medical attention at all, 13.5% received a minimum level of medical assistance, and 19.4% received moderately sophisticated level of assistance. The primary cause of mortality for children under four is diarrhea, with an average of 5.2 episodes per child per year. Children under one, experience an average of 6.7 episodes per year.

This situation is more serious in the marginal communities, because the population is exposed to poor availability and quality of water, alack of sanitation, drainage, and sewer system, which make life very deficient in all aspects.
Water and Sanitation

Over the past 25 years our partner, IDDI, has worked intensively within the barrios of Santo Domingo to improve the problem of environmental pollution due to the lack of a water and sanitation infrastructure. Currently the Dominican Foundation and IDDI are focused on various water and sanitation projects within Santo Domingo. One example involves the neighborhood of Simon Bolivar, one of the most impoverished barrios of Santo Domingo.
Barrios of Santo Domingo, Simon Bolivar

Environmental pollution dramatically affects Santo Domingo's barrios especially the neighborhood of Simon Bolivar, thus affecting the quality of life for its residents whom increasingly must invest more in health.

Families with higher levels of poverty and social exclusion tend to build their homes on land unfit for living.

This is the case of the community Simon Bolivar where the majority of homes are located on hill slopes and on areas very close to the river's fringe characterized by unstable ground as a result of mudslides caused by heavy rains. This situation poses serious problems for the municipality of Santo Domingo and the central government, neither of which have the necessary means to react to a growing and unorganized urbanization rate, nor to obtain the adequate resources to establish basic services required by the community.

According to an IDDI survey, in the last 5 years, the most significant problems afflicting Simon Bolivar are the following:

  • Close to 20% of homes do not have access to a waste pick-up service on a regular basis.
  • Presence of serious illnesses: Dengue Fever (25%) Hepatitis (33%), Malaria (22%), Meningitis (18%), Tuberculosis (32%), all result of poor hygiene.
  • 35% of those surveyed received medical attention in the last three months due to an illness or accident injury.
  • The domestic use for water, not including the usage for sanitary purposes, is discarded in backyards (40%), in the sewage system (21%), in nearby alleyways (21%) and in ravines (4.2%).
  • 55% of homes are built on unstable ground, 15% on slopes, 14.6% near ravines or streams, 8% on ground prone to landslides and 7.2% on areas near the river bank.
  • The main sources of pollution for homes are nearby ravines or streams (38.6%), street ways (49%), latrine outlets (47%) and latrines adjacent to homes (37%).
  • A majority of homes, most with only one floor, are located on roads inaccessible to vehicles (29%), on trails (6.37%) and on stairways (14.7%).
  • Municipal and private waste management trucks do not have the technology to access the narrow and almost non-existent roads that lead to this neighborhood.