An expansion of the health center of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s sister parish in the Dominican Republic will improve care for people in the community. (Submitted photo)
Expanded access to healthcare services is coming to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s sister parish La Sagrada Familia in the Dominican Republic — and with it, a sense of hope for the future.
Earlier this year, a $66,000 grant was awarded by the Catholic Community Foundation to the Milwaukee Archdiocesan Office for World Mission. This money, along with donations from the Archdiocesan Love One Another Campaign, the Lenten Appeal at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Hartland and private donors in Racine and Milwaukee, will comprise 60 percent of the necessary funding for an expansion of La Sagrada Familia’s Parish Health Center in Sabana Yegua, in the province of Azua.
It will mean a brighter and healthier environment for patients, access to streamlined and more effective care, and improved rehabilitative services through the hiring of a physical therapist who will serve children, elderly people and Haitian migrants.
It will also mean specialized training for the clinic’s nurses and strengthened services of the community’s Haitian immigrants who, along with other marginalized groups, experience barriers to quality healthcare.
“The project will significantly improve health outcomes for the most vulnerable populations served by La Sagrada Familia: children, the elderly and Haitian migrants,” said Fr. Javier Guativa, pastor of La Sagrada Familia. “The diversity of medical services will result in more comprehensive care for these communities, reducing wait times and improving treatment outcomes.”
The importance of those concrete developments can’t be understated, said Dr. Antoinette Mensah, Ph.D, Director, World Mission Ministries and the Office for World Mission and Society for the Propagation of the Faith — but their impact, she said, will be seen not just in patients’ minds and bodies but in their spirits.
Simply put, good healthcare creates a good future.
“It opens up an idea in the community that this is a place where the youth can come back to,” she said. “It opens up a new way of thinking and perspective for the community.”
La Sagrada Familia is the largest parish in the Diocese of San Juan de la Maguana and serves a total population of 30,000 people residing in 19 communities surrounding Sabana Yegua. In addition to providing spiritual care, catechesis, youth and adult formation and more, the parish is also a source of direct services that include healthcare, education, job training, micro-loans, clean water and emergency assistance.
Currently, the Parish Health Center, founded more than 35 years ago by the late Fr. Vincent F. Kobida, employs two pharmacists, a business office manager, a dentist, a family doctor, two lab technicians, an OB/GYN and three nurses, one of whom also serves as the physical therapist. Office space will be constructed for a gynecologist, an ophthalmologist, an ultrasound technician, a family doctor and a pediatrician, said Fr. Guativa. The physical therapy services will be relocated to be closer to the existing clinic. Additionally, the center will be able to offer a wider variety of specialists.
“Patients will not have to travel to see the doctor to the capital or other cities,” said Fr. Guativa, who noted how “sad” it is to see mothers who have to travel great distances with their sick children to visit a pediatrician. “The goal is to improve accessibility and health outcomes for vulnerable populations in the parish.”
“Having more professionals at the clinic opens the door for local young people to think about these jobs as a career option,” said Dr. Mensah. “Children now have a place in their hometown where they can envision working if they go to school to be a physical therapist.”
The dentist currently working at the clinic was raised in the community, she said. “Because of scholarships she was able to get, she was able to go to dental school, and she has come back and lives in the community and is the dentist. That wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have some place for her to envision doing that.”
Since 1981, La Sagrada Familia has been the sister parish of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. It has been served by many diocesan priests from Milwaukee and has enjoyed strong relationships with many parishes throughout the archdiocese.
“We often say that La Sagrada Familia is a parish with three communities: the Dominican people, the migrant population from Haiti that reside in our parish, and the itinerant community of visitors and volunteers that visit us during the year, from the different parishes of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee,” said Fr. Guativa.
Fr. Guativa noted just a few contributions from Milwaukee parishes, among them 18 eye clinics facilitated by St. Mary Parish in Kenosha and medical clinics for the Haitian community made possible by the support of Holy Apostles in New Berlin. “It is also very moving to know that parishes in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee like St. John Paul II, St. Patrick in Racine, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, St. Charles Borromeo in Hartland not only help and support our ministries but also keep us every weekend in prayer by mentioning us by name in their prayers of the faithful,” he said. “All this to say that the bonds of faith and solidarity between La Sagrada Familia and the faithful of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee are a sign of the Universal Church, and what we are called to be as Catholics.”
“During this Ordinary Jubilee Year of Hope, we are called to walk in the footsteps of Jesus as builders and bearers of hope — renewing the missionary spirit within all peoples,” said Dr. Mensah. “Our relationship with La Sagrada Familia offers us a unique and grace-filled way to live out this call, cultivating a shared hope that transcends borders and unites us as one Church on mission.”
