2023 Medical Mission: Banica Day 6

Today we operated at Los Cacacos, a site quite literally on the border with Haiti, although there is some discussion and some maps that show that the site is actually in Haiti proper. The site is a “frontier” area, and was well chosen as it seems to freely serve the citizens of the DR while also including as many Haitians who need or want to access medical care.

We crossed the Artibonite River, which is the longest river in Haiti and usually forms part of the international border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  We drove past a jointly operated border post (which should give you an idea of where Los Cacacos is actually located), and set up our clinic mere footsteps from a gate which seems to serve as the physical border crossing between the DR and Haiti.  As explained to us, the area is like an international trade zone.

During our clinic, we saw 112 patients and literally exhausted all of our medicines with minor exceptions. Total patient count now stands at 584.

After the clinic, our docs went to downtown Banica and looked to purchase more medicines for tomorrow’s clinic. The team was able to purchase medicines at the Banica hospital pharmacy.

Earlier this morning the ground here actually shook — turns out we felt the impact of the 5.0 magnitude earthquake which struck south of the Dominican Republic and Santo Domingo early Wednesday morning.  The quake occurred in the waters southwest of the capital of Santo Domingo at a depth of 28 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

There have been no official estimates of damage or loss of life.  We are a little bit worried about potential damage to the airport and airport operations,