The excerpt below is from a report provided to BBF by Cross International regarding a BBF pharma container donation that went to the Dominican Republic. It helps visualize the impact that the pharma donation program is making on the lives of underserved community members.

The medicines were distributed to eight health centers, one community outreach center, and one adult correction center in eight departments across the Dominican Republic. The distribution network includes 50 hospitals, clinics, elderly homes, and local NGOs. All product was eagerly received and gratefully distributed by Fundación Hospital General El Buen Samaritano to each benefitting medical facility. From this shipment, the most useful medications were Amoxicillin 400mg, Azithromycin 250mg, and Atenolol 50mg. These medications have been a relief for thousands of patients in the DR who attend primary care units to seek free medications to treat respiratory tract infections, high blood pressure, and throat infections.

Fundación Hospital General El Buen Samaritano (HBS) spends considerable amount of time and resources to help and support people living in bateyes, which are settlements around a sugar mill that can be found all over the Caribbean. Bateyes are populated with Haitians in the Dominican Republic. Historically, Haitians would come and work seasonally in the sugarcane fields and then return to their homes in Haiti. However, over the years with Haiti’s worsening conditions, most Haitians have decided to stay in the communities that were created only to house people temporarily. The Dominican government has historically provided fewer public services to bateyes than to similarly sized communities in the rest of the country due to being seen as illegal settlements. Furthermore, Haitians who originally filled the bateyes were not legal immigrants. Their children have often been denied citizenship papers because they are considered to have been born while in transit. Without legal documents in the Dominican Republic these Haitian children cannot go to school nor can they receive the benefits of other public services such as the public health system. Therefore, HBS has such a strong passion for giving services to these communities. One of these bateyes that HBS supports is batey 50, located in the province of El Seibo.

Batey 50 is made up of a population where more than 70% of the community inhabitants are of Haitian descent. With HBS working in batey 50, many families and children have received the care they needed to treat illnesses. Such is the case of Mrs. Margarita Luis and her son Leonel Luis who is one year old. HBS found Margarita and Leonel suffering greatly from some type of flu that had been passing through the community. Margarita and Leonel were suffering from strong fevers, pains, and general discomfort. Fortunately, Margarita and Leonel were able to be seen by a doctor nearby, and the doctor was able to write a prescription for both her and her child. However, more than one-third of the people in the Dominican Republic live below the poverty line and are unable to provide for their families’ basic needs, let alone to pay for health needs when they comes up. It was a blessing and relief for Margarita to know that she would receive medications for her and her child to treat her symptoms thanks to the generosity of donors like BBF, who provide essential medications for greater impact on those most vulnerable.