- Joined
- May 13, 2010
- Messages
- 5,250
- Reaction score
- 763
- Location
- Los Angels, USA
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Slightly Conservative
The Castroit tyrannical regime has for many years been treating the health care personnel as “exportable commodities.” It is a modern day version of trafficking in human beings, a multi billion dollars form of international crime, a violation of human rights. The regime earns around $6 billion per year exporting professional services, especially doctors, to other countries, more than the $5.6 billion brought by tourism, nickel and remittances togetherExporting Doctors
http://translatingcuba.com/exporting-doctors-orlando-freire-santana-2/
Orlando Freire Santana
The popular Cuban refrain, when referring to the contradiction when the person producing something hasn’t got that thing in his own home, employs the very handy saying, “In the blacksmith’s house, you find a stick for a knife.” We can say the same thing with the health service nowadays, with a large number of doctors and medical students, and on the other hand poor attention for the ordinary citizen.
The news agency France Press, based on information that appeared in the newspaper Granma, official organ of the Communist Party, let it be known that more than 47,000 students, 10,000 of them foreigners, had enrolled in medical courses in Cuban universities in the academic year 2013/14. It emphasize that, taking into account that Cuba has more than 75,000 doctors for a population of 11.1 million inhabitants, which would represent a doctor for every 148 people, the island finds itself in a privileged position on the international level.
Nevertheless, such statistics contrast with the calamitous state of many of the health services in our country. It’s the same in hospitals, health centers, dental surgeries, opticians and in the family health centers. These centers started up nearly three decades ago, with the intention of providing 24-hour primary health care in peoples’ home areas. But they function so erratically now that the intention in question has pretty well disappeared.
For example, in the Council area of Cerro, Havana, out of four centers started in the ’80s, today only one remains offering services, leading to frequent overcrowding in the place, and the inevitable irritation both of the patients and the doctors.
In the case of the doctors who move out of the houses annexed to the centers, although the doctor turns up for the day, he doesn’t any longer live next door, leading to lack of attention for patients with emergencies. Note also the dreadful state of the building in many of these centers, and the same is true in hospitals and clinics. There are propped up roofs, leaky walls and out of service toilets.
The official newspaper Granma echoed the complaint of a surgeon in the Laser Surgery Service of the Celia Sánchez Manduley hospital. The doctor pointed out that for more than a year they hadn’t practiced optical surgery in that health center due to technical problems with the air circulation equipment in the operating rooms. While in the context of the so-called “Operation Miracle”, the Cuban doctors give back sight to people from various countries, more than a few Cubans lack such benefits.
On the balcony where an old lady lives, appeared a sign with the following text, “I’m off to Venezuela.” It was, obviously, the cry of a desperate patient who could not see the solution to her health problem within the confines of our “medical power”.
Sometimes patients have to travel great distances to be attended to by particular specialists because the health centers in their health district don’t have such specialists. Many Cubans have to give a little gift to these doctors in order to receive a quality service. Moreover, there is a scarcity of medicines in the pharmacies accepting Cuban pesos. Clearly, you almost always find those missing drugs in the international pharmacies, who sell for convertible pesos, the currency in which most Cubans are not paid.
And while all this is going on in the country, the “Castrismo” is going on about having more than 40,000 doctors in 58 countries. It’s not a secret to anybody that those professionals work in difficult conditions in those countries where they offer their services, and that the Cuban government repays them just a tiny fraction of what the recipient countries pay for them. Nevertheless, every time we talk to a doctor who works in Cuba, his desire comes across to go abroad to serve on “a mission.” It’s logical, since, even bearing in mind the financial robbery referred to, there will always be more than is evident in the island. You mustn’t forget that a doctor in Cuba, on average, earns the equivalent of 25 or 30 dollars a month.
Not everything is the color of roses for those doctors who are sent abroad. In many places they don’t recognize their professional qualification. Right now, the first 400 0f a total of 4,000 have arrived in Brazil. We know about the protests of that country’s Medical Union that casts doubt on the skills of those doctors, at the same time as they accuse president Dilma Rousseff of getting up to political games, rather than acting to improve the country’s health. In the same way, more than a few countries require an ability test for the doctors who graduate from the Latin American School of Medicine based in the Cuban capital.
Nevertheless the Cuban authorities take into account the obvious judgment that this huge quantity has to be balanced with quality. Every year a larger number of students are summoned to study medicine, a course which they now run in all the provinces throughout the country. Here the utilitarian consideration far outweighs the functional. The foreign medical services have become the country’s principal source of income, more than tourism, nickel and tobacco. Other considerations don’t appear to matter.
There are a total of 76,000 Cuban doctors. According to MINSAP, 40,000 Cuban doctor’s work oversees. From 2003 to 2012, it is estimate that 4,000 physicians left Cuba. This left at 32,000 the numbers of doctors in Cuba. Of those, near 10% quit their profession to work in more lucrative jobs, leaving only 28,800 working in their profession. The regime has acknowledged that there is a shortage of doctors and nurses in Cuba. The vice minister of public health, Joaquín García Salaberría, took the highly unusual step of admitting on Cuban television that there were shortages of doctors and nurses. The World Health statistics 2013, based in the data submitted by the Castroit regime, estimate in 67.2 the number of physicians per 10,000 population. This is equal to one doctor for every 149 people. But the real per capita of practicing doctors in Cuba is one doctor for every 389 people.