Digital Debut

Saint Mother Teresa Medical Center, the first primary care clinic and surgery center in the Dominican Republic.

One World Surgery cofounders LuLu Daly and Peter Daly, MD.

Gisele Oakes, a general volunteer, takes vitals of a pediatric patient in the DR ASC.

The medical team at the DR facility.

Joice Morillo, MD, medical director of the DR facility, and Hugh West, MD, One World Surgery board member and partner, with the first surgical patient in the DR ASC.

The preop area of the DR ASC.

Roberto Ross, MD, a family medicine physician volunteer with Optum, treats a patient in the DR facility.

An operating room in the DR ASC.

An Optum medical mission group after serving patients at Batey Escuela in the DR.

Amanda Laflamme, a physician assistant volunteer with Optum, treats a pediatric patient in the DR facility.

PHOTO CREDIT: ONE WORLD SURGERY

One World Surgery Opens First Ever ASC in DR

The surgery center is a milestone for healthcare accessibility in the country

BY SAHELY MUKERJI | JULY 24, 2025

One World Surgery (OWS) hosted the grand opening of Saint Mother Teresa Medical Center, the first primary care clinic and surgery center in the Dominican Republic (DR), in June. The 25,000-square-foot facility includes a surgery center, a primary care clinic and a visitor center, and employs close to 25 staff members, an orthopedic surgeon and medical director, three other doctors, and a range of clinical and general employees.

This is OWS’s second ASC; the organization opened its first ASC, the Holy Family Surgery Center, in Honduras in 2008. “Six years ago, OWS agreed to expand to its second site in the DR,” says Claire Cunningham, chief executive officer of OWS.

The construction of the DR facility started in 2019. Cunningham and her family moved down to the DR that year and supported the construction and onboarding of its first ever Dominican teammates. The DR facility began hosting mobile primary care missions in fall 2019 to address acute and chronic health conditions of patients in the surrounding communities.

The facility’s construction was put on pause in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We expected the facility to be built in two years, but it became four years with the challenges of contractors, the pandemic and Hurricane Fiona in 2022,” Cunningham says. Thankfully, the hurricane did not cause any loss of life in the OWS team, but the community and housing were severely impacted. “Construction was significantly impacted by the mud slides,” she says.

The facility had operationalized its primary care, visitor center and community center. The community center hosts education, training and development for the community, the team and the volunteers.

The team received its certificate to perform surgery in September 2024. “Our first surgery was orthopedic,” Cunningham says. “We have now performed close to 34 surgeries. We are being very intentional about how we expand our surgical footprint, doing it in a way that is safe and strategic. We are performing orthopedic, general and ophthalmology surgeries. We based these specialties on the local need to make the greatest impact. A lot of our patients are workers in sugarcane fields, so there are many untreated orthopedic injuries.”

Joice Morillo, MD, medical director, and Hugh West, MD, OWS board member and partner, performed the initial surgeries. The first surgical case was a man living with a noncancerous mass on his elbow. “Watching Dr. Morillo, a young Dominican orthopedic surgeon who endured and succeeded in a surgical training program not built to accommodate women, was a really moving moment,” West says. “Here she is, with all the energy, heart and skill to serve her people. It felt no different than operating at home in the US.”

The commitment of the staff is amazing, Cunningham says. “We are incredibly proud of our teammates in the DR. Ramon is one of our first workers. He lost his leg working in the sugarcane fields, and his wife is wheelchair bound because she never had the polio vaccination. Ramon never had the chance to pass high school, so we financed his studies as a radiology technician and now he is heading that department.”

Ramon worked with Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH), OWS’s partner and owner of the properties on which both the Honduran and DR facilities sit.

“Not long ago, I was introduced to Dr. Peter Daly [OWS cofounder] at One World Surgery,” Ramon says. “My team collected health surveys to see if the surgery center would be a good fit for our community. I connected One World Surgery to the local hospital, contractors and government officials, and became the first full-time employee in the OWS Dominican location.”

Andi Kaiser, MD, volunteers with the DR team. “Whether in Honduras or the Dominican Republic, the work we do helps people function in their communities to their full potential,” she says. “It is not just about the surgeries themselves but the knowledge transfer and process improvements that ensure sustainable, long-term change.”

Currently, the DR ASC sees 500–600 patients a week when it is hosting a mission, Cunningham says. “With the local team, we see an average of 50 patients a day. The volumes are higher during a primary care medical mission in the DR, but in Honduras, because we do surgeries, we might do 50 a week and that is higher than the national average.”

In Honduras, the Holy Family Surgery Center hosts 1,100 volunteers a year, Cunningham says. “We anticipate the same in the DR,” she says. “Our mission has two parts: patient care and spirit of service and its transformative impact.

“Our success in Honduras demonstrated that we play a vital role in addressing global health inequities in under-resourced communities,” Cunningham says. “We made a deliberate and prudent strategic decision to expand to the DR—a country with pressing needs among Dominicans and Haitian immigrants.”

While the Holy Family Surgery Center grew in Honduras over 20 years, OWS is looking to move in a quicker time frame in the DR. “Given the geopolitical dimensions and the state of global health funding, we are looking to ramp up faster,” Cunningham says. “We are looking for support from partners like ASCA. We need clinical volunteers, preop and postop nurses, and scrub techs. There has never been an ASC in the DR, and we need clinical volunteers to train the DR staff. The DR clinical teammates have operated in other healthcare settings but not in the ASC setting, which is very different.”

“We are excited about our expansion and the impact One World Surgery, together with our local partners, will have on surgical and primary care in the DR,” Cunningham says.

OWS partners with healthcare and academic organizations, like SCA Health, Optum, Humana and Envision Healthcare, to engage volunteers and provide strategic direction and financial support.

“ASCA has played a key role in expanding our impact over the years and has been a part of our journey through all the highs and lows,” Cunningham says. “They funded the conference room in our DR facility. Bill [Prentice, ASCA chief executive officer] has been to the DR three times and was one of the very first partners to whom I was introduced. We are incredibly grateful to ASCA.”

Says Prentice, “One World Surgery offers access to essential healthcare to patients who have no other options. When you participate in one of their weeklong medical missions, you are changing lives. ASCA is proud to be a One World Surgery supporter, and we hope that everyone in the ASC community—facilities, vendors, consultants—will find a way to support this life-changing work.”