29856: Minsky: (news) AP Dominican activist Pierre recovering from heart surgery (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tequila Minsky <tminsky@ix.netcom.com>

Dominican activist Pierre recovering from heart surgery

By John Porretto, Associated Press Writer  |  January 9, 2007

HOUSTON --A Dominican human rights activist was recovering Tuesday from
heart surgery, an operation that came about after a fortuitous medical
examination in Sen. Edward Kennedy's Capitol Hill office, the doctor
who arranged the procedure said.

Sonia Pierre's heart condition was discovered in November, when she was
in Washington to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award
honoring her for her work fighting discrimination against Haitian
descendants.

While in Kennedy's office, Pierre agreed to an examination by Dr. John
C. Baldwin, a cardiac surgeon and member of the board of directors for
the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, which gives the annual human rights
award. Baldwin, chief executive of the Boston-based CBR Institute for
Biomedical Research Inc., an affiliate of Harvard University, said he'd
been asked by the family to inquire about Pierre's health.

"She told me she was having a lot of trouble with shortness of breath,"
he said. "I listened to her heart, with her permission, and determined
she needed immediate attention."

Baldwin immediately thought of his native Texas, where he once headed
the department of surgery at Methodist Hospital in Houston and which is
much closer to Pierre's home than, say, hospitals in Boston or New
York.

Baldwin said Methodist agreed to do the surgery Monday as a charitable
case, though a Methodist spokeswoman said she was prohibited by federal
law from commenting on such matters.

Baldwin said he too was restricted on what he could say about Pierre's
case, but he noted she was doing well Tuesday. He said Pierre, who's in
her early 40s, could be heading home in as soon as a week.

Pierre, who was raised in a migrant worker camp, began as an activist
three decades ago at age 13, when she was arrested for leading a march
to demand rights for sugar cane cutters.

More recently her group, the Movement for Dominican Women of Haitian
Descent, has fought to secure education and citizenship for ethnic
Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.

Pierre, one of 12 children raised in a one-room portion of a dirt-floor
barrack, was praised by RFK officials as a fearless and big-hearted
advocate for an oppressed minority in the Caribbean nation. An
estimated 500,000 to 1 million ethnic Haitians live in the Dominican
Republic, many in isolated village slums.

Haitians fleeing poverty provide cheap labor for the Dominican economy,
particularly during the sugar cane harvest, Kennedy noted at the awards
ceremony. Many face abuse, harsh living conditions and the constant
threat of deportation, he said.

"Because of Sonia, this neglected, impoverished, downtrodden community
has greater rights and greater hope for a future where equality and
justice are not just ideas, but reality," the senator said.

Pierre is the 23rd recipient of the award given in honor of the former
senator, U.S. attorney general and presidential candidate who was
assassinated in 1968.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/01/09/
dominican_activist_pierre_recovering_from_heart_surgery/