Improving women's health in Dominican Republic

Greetings,

We hope this message finds you with great joy. The Movimiento Mujeres Program has evolved from a pilot project to one of HHI's strongest institutional programs. During the month of October, within the framework of the 1st anniversary of the founding of the Program, we have impacted the lives of more than 500 women who have benefited from our services, of which 250 are due to the 5 community clinics carried out from August to October of 2021.

As part of the efforts to strengthen the primary care services and systems of the Ministry of Public Health of the Dominican Republic, within the Movimiento Mujeres Program, we have implemented a series of workshops focused on the identification of girls between the ages of 9 to 12 years in the vulnerable communities of the Municipality of Villa Montellano and connect them with the vaccination services against the human papillomavirus; while in turn, we link other women in the family nucleus with complimentary screening services for breast cancer, cervical cancer; education and prevention, sexual and reproductive health, among other services. The vaccine is overviewed by the Ministry of Public Health, and we currently have two locations: one at the Severet Center, and one at Hospital Gregorio Luperon of Villa Montellano.

In general, the HPV vaccine has a prohibitive cost that exceeds 6,000 RD at the private level; while factors such as geographic barriers, inaccessibility, and unavailability of services at the public level place vulnerable women in a more pronounced and accentuated gap. HHI will always be the bridge. Each year in the country there are about one thousand six hundred (1600) cases of cervical-uterine cancer and more than 500 deaths are associated with this disease.

Although women continue to face many adversities around access to quality primary care services, we continue to build bridges between communities and services. We want to thank each of our collaborators, who have remained steadfast by our side during this journey, and we hope to continue counting on their commitment in future opportunities and other assignments to our institution.

Firmly,