• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Exporting Doctors

Sandokan

DP Veteran
Joined
May 13, 2010
Messages
5,217
Reaction score
746
Location
Los Angels, USA
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Slightly Conservative
Exporting 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.
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 together

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.
 
One of the most readily apparent problems with the health care system in Castrolandia is the severe shortage of medicines, equipment, and other supplies. Even the most common pharmaceutical items, such as aspirin and antibiotics are conspicuously absent or only available on the black market, and patients need to provide bed sheets and food during hospital stays.

This problem is by no means limited to the health sector. Cubans often have tremendous difficulty obtaining basic consumer goods and other necessities, including food.

A number of key sectors of the economy, such as health care, remain governed by centralized planning, which inevitably leads to chronic material shortages and inefficiency. In a centralized economy, forces of supply and demand are inevitably out of balance, leading to underproduction of goods.
 
Many treatments we take for granted aren't available at all, except to the Communist elite, foreigners with dollars, and top members of the repressive apparatus and the armed forces. For those, the Castroit regime keeps hospitals equipped with the best medicines and most modern technologies. And, whatever is left, is for the rest of the population.
 
Over 3,000 Cuban Doctors Defected From Venezuela
Capitol Hill Cubans: Over 3,000 Cuban Doctors Defected From Venezuela

Capitol Hill Cubans

In 2013, over 3,000 Cuban doctors have defected from Venezuela.

According to El Universal, this represents a 60% increase from 2012, which illustrates the rapidly declining state of affairs in Venezuela.

The Venezuelan government pays the Castro regime $6,000 per doctor.

Meanwhile, each Cuban doctor only receives $300 -- which represents a 95% profit margin for the Castro brothers.

Spanish link: En Un Ano Tres Mil Cubanos Desertaron De Venezuela - Internacional - El Universal
One of the Castroit tyrannical regime most profitable business enterprises is the selling of slave labor to foreign countries in order to procure hard currency.

However, we are happy to learn that a large number of enslaved doctors sold to Venezuela's puppet dictatorship have managed escape. In the last year, an average of 3,000 Cubans, the majority of them doctors, deserted to the United States from various social programs being carried out in Venezuela. This figure represents a 60% increase over 2012.
 
Cuba’s National Statistics Office (ONE), at the end of 2012 estimated at 82,065 the total number of doctors. A couple of months ago, Minister of Health Robert Morales said that 56,600 doctors were working outside the country. An estimate of 4,000 physicians left the island between 2003 and 2012. The actual number of doctors in Cuba would be: 82,065 – 56,600 – 4000 = 22,065. From those, close to 10% quit the profession to work in more lucrative jobs, leaving about 19,860 working in their profession. The real per capita of practicing doctors in Cuba is one doctor for every 564 people, not a doctor for every 137 persons as per the regime figure based in the total number of doctors.
 
How do Cuban doctors escape Venezuela?
How do Cuban doctors escape Venezuela?

Adriel Reyes

Despite the eight years in which they may not return to see family on the island, uncertain fates and the danger to which they are exposed, in 2013, eight Cuban doctors defected daily in Venezuela.

In two days, Cuban doctor Maria del Carmen Fundora would travel to the United States. They woke her at four o'clock in the morning, in the home she shared with her mission companions in Venezuela. She was still in pajamas, because they wouldn't allow her to change clother. Despite the curfew imposed by the violence in that country, in the middle of the night, the attending head of mission and security personnel from Cuba and Venezuela went to take her away.

The evidence against her was irrefutable: emails sent to relatives in the United States and phone calls to the U.S. Embassy. The last that was heard from her was that she was immediately deported to the island. Her belongings would be sent to her later.

Fernando Garcia, a doctor from Santiago de Cuba, ran better luck. He came to the U.S. after crossing the Colombian border, just days after the Fundora incident. He was accompanied by his wife, who is also a Cuban doctor. For over a month, they lived in a cheap motel in Caracas, awaiting visas granted through the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program.

Not to be deported to Venezuela, Garcia followed the recommendation to leave the mission before starting the paperwork to travel to the United States. He tried not to attract the attention of the authorities or take any medication or utensil, including his stethescope. Besides all that, it "is always advisable to take a little money with you in case you have to bribe someone on the road."
Since 2006 around 8,000 Cuban doctors have defected to the United States while serving on aid missions in Venezuela.

The Castroit "doctor diplomacy" involves utilizing Cuban physicians to serve in areas where the Cuban regime has entered into contractual relationships with the expressed intention of providing health care aid and establishing or nourishing diplomatic relations with the host community. The physicians serving in those countries are essentially under surveillance all the time and any change in their plans not consistent with the orders given from Havana invariably lead to the involvement of police or paramilitary security forces. It is no wonder that many physicians in such missions defect to freedom. About 12,000 health workers, many of them physicians, have left Cuba in the last ten years.
 
Under the Castroit government's health care monopoly, the state assumes complete control. Average Cubans suffer long waits at government hospitals, while many services and technologies are available only to the Cuban party elite and foreign "health tourists" who pay with hard currency. Moreover, access to such rudimentary medicines as antibiotics and Aspirin can be limited, and patients often must bring their own bed sheets and blankets while in care.
 
Cuba was a ****hole, is a ****hole, and will always be a ****hole.

Nothing new there.
 
Cuban MD to File Suit in Brazil
Cuban MD to File Suit in Brazil - Havana Times.org

Posted By Circles Robinson On February 8, 2014

Brazilian government defends its More Doctors program

By José Alberto Gutiérrez* (Café Fuerte) [1]

HAVANA TIMES — Ramona Matos Rodríguez, the Cuban doctor who left the “More Doctors” program in Brazil, has opened a Pandora’s Box.

After leaving the doctor’s office where she had been located in the remote Pacajás municipality in the northern Brazilian state of Pará, the Cuban sought protection in the heart of Brazilian politics, the capital Brasilia.

Politicians of the Partido Democratas (DEM), in opposition to the government of President Dilma Rousseff, immediately gave their support to the doctor, seeking the advantages in politics these types of cases tend to provide, especially in an election year.

Matos, who remains hosted on the premises of the Chamber of Deputies, was presented to the parliament, and her case taken to an emergency meeting with the Minister of Justice, the Brazilian Lawyers Association and the Public Ministry, besides receiving considerable media attention .

Ramona.jpg

Dr. Ramona Matos with a group of opposition politicians and parliamentarians who support her complaint to the government of Dilma Rousseff.

Legal Action

The latest action from DEM, announced its leader Mendonca Filho, is to file a suit at the Ministry of Labor in which Matos demands the portion of her salary (nearly 90%) that goes to the Cuban government.

Payment to members of the Cuban mission takes place through a web of contracts signed between the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Distributor of Cuban Medical Services S.A.

Matos will also request compensation for alleged moral damages. She says she is “deeply deceived” after she was presented with a contract in Cuba for $1,000 a month of which $400 would be paid to her in Brazil and $600 deposited on the island. She claims that it wasn’t until after her arrival in Brazil that she learned the real amount budgeted for the program’s participants is around US $4,200.
“Brazilian law provides that any person who has the value of their work reduced is suffering unequal treatment and has the right to claim moral damages,” said the DEM Rep. Mendonça Filho who is advising the Cuban doctor in this action.

Beyond the individual suit by Matos, the opposition party plans to present a class action suit against More Doctors, the banner program of Rousseff in the field of public health. This suit would cover all Cuban doctors, forcing the Brazilian government to reimburse them the full value of their wages.

In an interview with the newspaper O Globo, Labor Ministry prosecutor Sebastião Caixeta, said he agreed with the claims of Dr. Matos and said in the coming days he will submit a report recommending the full payment of salaries for Matos and the more than five thousand Cubans who are currently working in Brazil in the More Doctors program.

According to Caixeta, the employment contracts revealed by Matos, signed by Cuban professionals and the Distributor of Cuban Medical Services SA, proves that this is not just a simple scholarship grant, but of common labor relations governed by the laws of the country.
Meanwhile, Brazilian President Rousseff tries to distance himself from the Matos case, considering it an isolated case and confident that incidents of deserting Cubans will not multiply. She believes this specific case should be resolved by the relevant ministries of Health and Justice, and never reach the Presidential Palace.

Among Ministers

The new Brazilian minister of Health, Arthur Chioro, who replaces the former Minister Alexandre Padilha, has downplayed the defection of the Cuban doctor and announced Mato’s removal from the official program and her prompt replacement in the distant Pacajás. Padilha, the outgoing minister, was the spearhead of the More Doctors program. He left his office to present his candidacy for the post of governor of the State of Sao Paulo, one day before Matos went public in Brasilia.

“The revolution began with More Doctors will continue,” said Chioro.

Matos, 51, also filed a request with the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia for protection under the special program for defecting Cuban physicians in third countries, in force since 2006. Under the so-called Cuban Medical Professional Parole, more than 1,500 members of the Cuban medical missions have been granted asylum in the USA.

* Cuban journalist and executive editor of Terra Latin America and the United States. He lives in São Paulo.
Ramona Matos Rodríguez, the Cuban doctor, has practiced medicine for more than 20 years in Cuba for the slave wage of $30 a month. The Castroit regime don’t own the doctors. They have the inalienable right of working where they choose to. The free education and health care under the regime is a myth. The salary pay to the Cuban people is only 10% of the real salary, equivalent to an effective tax rate of 90%. In reality Cubans are paying for their education and health care every day they show up to work.
 
The Castroit regime ships more slave doctors to Brazil

barco+negrero.jpg

Which party is in control of the Brazilian government? Of course the “Workers’ Party.”
 
How do Cuban doctors escape Venezuela?
How do Cuban doctors escape Venezuela?

Adriel Reyes

Despite the eight years in which they may not return to see family on the island, uncertain fates and the danger to which they are exposed, in 2013, eight Cuban doctors defected daily in Venezuela.

In two days, Cuban doctor Maria del Carmen Fundora would travel to the United States. They woke her at four o'clock in the morning, in the home she shared with her mission companions in Venezuela. She was still in pajamas, because they wouldn't allow her to change clother. Despite the curfew imposed by the violence in that country, in the middle of the night, the attending head of mission and security personnel from Cuba and Venezuela went to take her away.

The evidence against her was irrefutable: emails sent to relatives in the United States and phone calls to the U.S. Embassy. The last that was heard from her was that she was immediately deported to the island. Her belongings would be sent to her later.

Fernando Garcia, a doctor from Santiago de Cuba, ran better luck. He came to the U.S. after crossing the Colombian border, just days after the Fundora incident. He was accompanied by his wife, who is also a Cuban doctor. For over a month, they lived in a cheap motel in Caracas, awaiting visas granted through the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program.

Not to be deported to Venezuela, Garcia followed the recommendation to leave the mission before starting the paperwork to travel to the United States. He tried not to attract the attention of the authorities or take any medication or utensil, including his stethescope. Besides all that, it "is always advisable to take a little money with you in case you have to bribe someone on the road."

He chose to take the risk of crossing the border through the Venezuelan state of Tachira to Cucuta, because once in Colombia "you are free." He had previously heard of doctors who, like him, with visa in hand, were stuck "in an office," of Venezuelan airports "to jave money extracted." Otherwise they were deported to Cuba."
Since 2006 around 8,000 Cuban doctors have defected to the United States while serving on aid missions in Venezuela.

The Castroit "doctor diplomacy" involves utilizing Cuban physicians to serve in areas where the Cuban regime has entered into contractual relationships with the expressed intention of providing health care aid and establishing or nourishing diplomatic relations with the host community. The physicians serving in those countries are essentially under surveillance all the time and any change in their plans not consistent with the orders given from Havana invariably lead to the involvement of police or paramilitary security forces. It is no wonder that many physicians in such missions defect to freedom. About 12,000 health workers, many of them physicians, have left Cuba in the last ten years.
 
Cuba Manipulating Health Care Statistics
http://freebeacon.com/cuba-manipulating-health-care-statistics/

BY: Daniel Wiser
March 5, 2014 6:04 pm

Cuba’s socialist regime continues to engage in widespread manipulation of its health care statistics to enhance its legitimacy abroad, experts say.

The issue of Cuba’s health care record came up again recently after Sen. Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) visited the island in January, telling reporters afterward that Cuba is a “poor country” but “their public health system is quite remarkable.” He said Cuba has a lower child mortality rate than the United States and a higher life expectancy.

Cuba.jpg

A pre-labor maternity ward in Cuba/AP

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) contested Harkin’s claims in an impassioned floor speech last week.
“I wonder if the government officials who hosted him, informed him that in Cuba there are instances reported, including by defectors, that if a child only lives a few hours after birth, they’re not counted as a person who ever lived, and, therefore, don’t count against the mortality rate,” he said.

Continuous reading here: http://freebeacon.com/cuba-manipulating-health-care-statistics/
The myth of Castro tyranny about the success of the Cuban Health Care System, is debunked by an article titled “Re-examining the Cuban Health Care System.” The author, University of Oklahoma Professor Katherine Hirschfeld University of Oklahoma, spent nine months in the island living with a Cuban family and interviewing family doctors, medical specialists, social workers, nurses and patients as part of her research. Katherine Hirschfeld , Vol. 2, Issue 3-July 2007.
Link: http://romancatholicworld.files.wor...qualitative-critique-katherine-hirschfeld.pdf
 
According to UN figures, Cuba's current infant mortality rate places the country 34th from the top in worldwide ranking. According to those same UN figures, in 1958, Cuba ranked 13th from the top, worldwide. This meant that pre-Castro Cuba had the 13th lowest infant-mortality rate in the world.

It is well known fact that totalitarian regimes inflate statistics. Cuba's infant mortality rate is kept low by the regime’s tampering with statistics, by a low birth rate of 12.5 births per 1000 population, and by a staggering abortion rate of 77.7 abortions per 1,000 women (0.78 abortions per each live birth. Data based on official statistics from the Cuban government). Cuba had the lowest birth rate and doubles the abortion rate in Latin America. Cuba's abortion rate was the 3rd highest out of the 60 countries studied. (The Incidence of Abortion Worldwide)
 
Another health parameter linked to infant mortality, is the maternal mortality rate. Cuba’s maternal mortality rate is 33 deaths per 1,000 live births. This health statistic is high despite the fact that Cuba has the lowest birth rate in Latin America. The doctors are supposed to suggest abortion in risky pregnancies and, in some occasions, must perform the interruption without the consent of the couple. Cuban pediatricians constantly falsify figures for the regime. If an infant dies during his first year, the doctors often report he/she was older (infant mortality rate is define by the number of deaths during the first year of life per thousand live births). Otherwise, such lapses could cost him severe penalties and his job.
 
Increase in dengue, cholera and other viruses in Cuba
Increase in dengue, cholera and other viruses in Cuba

Ivan Garcia, Translation: Bruno Tokarz
November 21, 2013

In Cuba, the dengue virus is extensively widespread. In a hospital in Santo Suárez, a neighborhood in Havana, the fourth floor is full of children with dengue. And throughout the island, hospitals are overwhelmed with patients suffering from different viruses.

“For a long time, dengue and other infectious diseases have not been under control. It has become a vicious cycle. The yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) thrives in Cuba due to an unresolved problem: the lack of a reliable supply of drinking water 24-hours a day. Broken water pipes, containers without adequate protection, lack of sanitation in the cities –among others- are the breeding ground that has transformed dengue and other viruses into a plague. On top of that, add the tropical climate and excessive humidity," says one epidemiologist. " The most effective dengue deterrent is frequent fumigation and awareness on the part of the public to seek treatment at the first symptoms."

Consuelo (name changed), a physician with 25 years of experience, spoke categorically. She opened a large map of the 10 de Octubre municipality and pointed to areas marked in red. “What is now rare to find is a neighborhood in the district where no cases of dengue have been reported. I think we have lost the battle with this disease. There is no sound preventive policy. We cannot prevent viruses such as dengue and many others. We can only help promote through the media that families take preventive sanitary measures such as boiling the water and, in the event that the period of incubation of the disease were already in progress, be ready to act in conjunction within the appropriate network –beginning with the family doctor, the healthcare centers that can provide the proper assistance which will, in turn, report the cases to the higher levels. We are playing with fire. The government guarantees us the medications but in order to counter and eliminate dengue and cholera, more far-reaching measures are needed, which entails expenses in the millions of dollars."

The last official report of dengue in Cuba dates from 2012, citing 63 cases. But last August, the Ministry of Public Health reported the existence of outbreaks of the carrier mosquito in 98 municipalities. The Pan American Health Organization reported 700 cases of cholera in Cuba in the last two years.
The Castroit regime did not want to reveal to the world the existence of an epidemic of dengue fever in the spring and summer of 1997 because it was a personal embarrassment to Fidel Castro, who had previously declared that the mosquito responsible for dengue, the Aedes aegypti, had been eradicated long before by the long arm of the Revolution.

The dengue fever epidemic has become endemic in the Island. Castro’s regime has always tried to hide the facts, instead of asking the international community for help to eradicate the epidemic. This excellent article about the Dengue Epidemic is a must read: “THE DENGUE EPIDEMIC IN CUBA” http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaVerdad/message/25764
 
In all nations with high emigration rates longevity rates skew high. This occurs because the birth is recorded but the death gets recorded in the nation migrated to. So it seems like fewer people die. A nation with high longevity but with high emigration has little to boast about with regards to longevity figures. During the last 54 years, 2.6 million Cubans have emigrated/born abroad. The actual island population is 11.2 million. The 2.6 million represent 23.2% of the population in the island and 18.8% of the total population, a very high rate. This explains in great part the high life expectancy.

Under the Castroit regime Cubans have experienced the deterioration of practically all health indicators, from sanitation to housing. The increase in infectious diseases in the island like dengue, cholera, leptospirosis (rat fever) and other viruses, does not correlate with the life-expectancy statistics of the regime.
 
In all nations with high emigration rates longevity rates skew high. This occurs because the birth is recorded but the death gets recorded in the nation migrated to. So it seems like fewer people die. A nation with high longevity but with high emigration has little to boast about with regards to longevity figures. During the last 54 years, 2.6 million Cubans have emigrated/born abroad. The actual island population is 11.2 million. The 2.6 million represent 23.2% of the population in the island and 18.8% of the total population, a very high rate. This explains in great part the high life expectancy.

Under the Castroit regime Cubans have experienced the deterioration of practically all health indicators, from sanitation to housing. The increase in infectious diseases in the island like dengue, cholera, leptospirosis (rat fever) and other viruses, does not correlate with the life-expectancy statistics of the regime.

Cuba's standard for a "live birth" is way out of whack with the rest of the world. Castro does this to inflate life expectancy rates. While 'live birth' includes any living birth in the US, the Castro regime does not count a birth as live until the baby is a couple months old. Less than that, they don't factor into the average.
 
One hundred year ago the public health in Cuba was excellent, and the Cuban people didn’t have to forfeit their rights in order to benefit from it. Apparently the “experts” overlook this fact.

These are excerpts from a paper titled “Tropical Diseases in Cuba”, by Dr. E. B. Barnet, read before the American Public Health Association on December 6, 1911, Havana, Cuba:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1089428/pdf/amjphealth00144-0045.pdf

The purpose of this paper, or rather of this note, is to call attention to and interesting point in the conditions of public health in Cuba, within the past few years, that is, since the time when nationalization of all the sanitary services of the country began to exert its beneficial influence, and especially in regard to so-called Tropical Diseases. (…)

The coefficient of mortality in 1910 for the entire Republic was 15.2, and in 1909, 13.03, (…)

In spite of the small increase referred to, the annual death rate of 15.31 continues to keep Cuba at the head of the two countries which have the lowest mortality in the world (…)

The state of public health in Cuba is, without doubt, admirable. And if to this we add, that in the country districts, in the expanse of the plains, in the thickness of the woods, and on the margins of the rivers, the traveler may move and rest in confidence and ease, because he is not threatened by poisonous serpents, nor poisonous insects, nor dangerous animals; it is not too much to say that Cuba is a land of promise which offers to its natives and to foreigners who visit its shores the products and benefits of a privileged soil and the necessary guarantees of health and life. (…)

The learned professor (Le Dantec) of exotic pathology of the Medical School of Bordeaux, could not have imagined that, in the course of time, and as the result of sanitary measures which have not yet become general in his country, the island of Cuba would offer to the world an even lower death rate than that of France, and would furnish to white immigrants from all countries more certain guarantees of health than any of the French or other European colonies throughout the world, with the only exception of Australia
 
One hundred year ago the public health in Cuba was excellent, and the Cuban people didn’t have to forfeit their rights in order to benefit from it. Apparently the “experts” overlook this fact.

These are excerpts from a paper titled:
“Tropical Diseases in Cuba”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1089428/pdf/amjphealth00144-0045.pdf

by Dr. E. B. Barnet, read before the American Public Health Association on December 6, 1911, Havana, Cuba:

The purpose of this paper, or rather of this note, is to call attention to and interesting point in the conditions of public health in Cuba, within the past few years, that is, since the time when nationalization of all the sanitary services of the country began to exert its beneficial influence, and especially in regard to so-called Tropical Diseases. (…)

The coefficient of mortality in 1910 for the entire Republic was 15.2, and in 1909, 13.03, (…)

In spite of the small increase referred to, the annual death rate of 15.31 continues to keep Cuba at the head of the two countries which have the lowest mortality in the world (…)

The state of public health in Cuba is, without doubt, admirable. And if to this we add, that in the country districts, in the expanse of the plains, in the thickness of the woods, and on the margins of the rivers, the traveler may move and rest in confidence and ease, because he is not threatened by poisonous serpents, nor poisonous insects, nor dangerous animals; it is not too much to say that Cuba is a land of promise which offers to its natives and to foreigners who visit its shores the products and benefits of a privileged soil and the necessary guarantees of health and life. (…)

The learned professor (Le Dantec) of exotic pathology of the Medical School of Bordeaux, could not have imagined that, in the course of time, and as the result of sanitary measures which have not yet become general in his country, the island of Cuba would offer to the world an even lower death rate than that of France, and would furnish to white immigrants from all countries more certain guarantees of health than any of the French or other European colonies throughout the world, with the only exception of Australia.
 
Truth has a tendency of getting in the way of leftist claims. From the book “Cuba of Today”, by A. Hyatt Merrill, published in 1931:

“In point of healthfulness Cuba leads the world, the Cuban death rate being 12.54 per thousand as against 15 in the United States; 17.70 in England; 17.80 in Germany; 20.60 in France; and 29.70 in Spain.”

Life expectancy at birth in Cuba:

1931: 43.8 years, among the best in the world. See Chart.
Migratio (Revista do CEPAM) - Demographic change and economic growth in Cuba (1898-1958).

1957: 64.2 years 32th in the world. See Table 1.
http://www.ascecuba.org/c/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/v22-stusser.pdf

2013: 78.22 years 59th in the world. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html)

In Latin America these countries rank above Cuba: Puerto Rico 48; Chile 52; Panama 56, and Costa Rica 58.

The life expectancy ranking of Cuba under Castroism had slip backwards. Seems that the so call “experts” missed those statistics.
 
Cuban medical care has never recovered from Castro's takeover, when the country’s health care ranked among the world's best. Many treatments we take for granted aren't available at all, except to the Communist elite or foreigners with dollars. For them, Castro keeps hospitals equipped with the best medicines and technologies available.

What is it that leads people to value theoretically "free" health care, even when it's lousy or nonexistent, over a free society that actually delivers health care? You might have to deal with creditors after you go to the emergency room in America, but no one is denied medical care here; even the poorest Americans are getting far better medical services than most Cubans.
 
Those who think democracy can’t be combined with social progress, poverty reduction and ecological protection are wrong. In fact, democracy is an essential ingredient for genuine social progress. A country like Costa Rica has been able to achieve all of these, and a better standard of living for its citizens, without any of the political repression Cubans have to endure.
 
Hospitals, “You Are on Your Own”
Hospitals, “You Are on Your Own” / Julio Cesar Alvarez | Translating Cuba

By Julio Cesar Alvarez

About 50,000 patients get some kind of infections annually. Lack of running water in bathrooms, clean linens, surgical gloves and even lack of brooms are among the causes.

HAVANA, Cuba. -Approximately 50,000 patients get some kind of infections in Cuban hospitals; 16,500 could die from that cause. Being admitted in a hospital is considered “more dangerous than an airline flight,” according to the World Health Organization.

More than 8 million patients die because of a severe infections every year around the world associated to medical attention, meaning one person dies every four seconds. In the USA 1.7 million infections are reported in hospitals, causing 100 thousand deaths. In Europe, 4.7 million are also reported in hospitals with a 37 thousand death toll, according to World Health Organization.

Every year government officials in Cuba report low child mortality rates, data that makes the Cuban Health System look great. However the numbers of infections, or deaths caused by hospital infections are not published, that could be a good indicator to measure health services quality in the island.

A hospital that has a high rate of infections among patients admitted, is not considered efficient. Even with no official data available, Dr. Rafael Nodarse Hernandez– a Microbiologist Specialist Grade 2 who works for the Dr. Luis Diaz Soto Military Hospital–confirmed in Havana that 50,000 people catch infections every year in Cuban hospitals, as he stated to a Cuban Military Medicine magazine.
The Hospitals where the common Cubans are treated have a lot of problems, among them the lack of minimal conditions to offer adequate medical services. The patients, when admitted, must provide their own meals and supplies like sheets, towels, table service, glasses, fans, medication, etc, among many other things. The pharmacies lack even the most essential medications as painkillers, vitamins and antiacids among others, and basic medical instruments like syringes, stethoscopes and thermometers.
 
The Castroit tyrannical regime health system is ruled and planned at the highest level and don’t allow independent participation of the civil society in decision making. This system creates a large bureaucracy, deficiencies, impaired operations, disregard of reality and corruption at all levels.

The country’s health system has never recovered since the Castroit regime took over in 1959, when it ranked among the world's best. The so much talk about the “free” high quality healthcare is a myth, since it is lousy and practically nonexistent. As a matter of fat, it has been an increased in epidemics such as hepatitis, dengue, leptospirosis, respiratory, cholera and stomach diseases. Mal nutrition, anemia and parasites affect a large portion of the population.

The reduction in the number of mammograms and cytological tests used in the diagnosis of breast cancer, have the alarming effect of increasing it in detriment of women’s health. The regime healthcare has gotten from bad to worst.
 
Back
Top Bottom