Cuba’s Relief Effort in Haiti

When the earthquake struck Haiti, the 344 Cuban doctors already working in that country were some of the first responders. One would probably not know this looking at only mainstream U.S. media. The reports are there, but one has to dig for them. The real impact that Cuban doctors have had on the ground in Haiti has been minimized in the press.

Since 1998, Cuba has been working to implement its trademark Comprehensive Heath Program (Programa de Salud Integral) in Haiti. This program not only has Cuban doctors working in all of Haiti’s 10 provinces, but also works to train Haitian doctors, many of whom were trained in Cuban medical schools free of charge. More than 500 Cuban-trained Haitian doctors also played a critical role as first responders, assisting Cubans in setting up more than a dozen field hospitals and makeshift clinics which to date have treated more than 10,000 patients. La Paz hospital in Port-au-Prince has been administered by Cuban doctors since the earthquake, and they are now treating more than 500 patients per day. In addition to the Cubans already working in the country, more doctors have been dispatched from Cuba, along with medical students from many countries studying in Cuba, some of them Haitian, who have volunteered to help in the relief effort.

Cuba works to promote a culture of international solidarity through medicine. The relief efforts in Haiti are not a unique situation for Cubans. Cubans routinely play an integral role in relief efforts around the world following natural disasters, the most recent examples being the tsunami that struck South Asia in 2004 and the earthquake in Pakistan in 2006.  But Cuban doctors do not only deal with disaster situations; the Comprehensive Health Program has brought primary medical care to many underserved areas of some of the world’s poorest countries, while simultaneously helping those nations to develop a sustainable groundwork for public health services. Among the most successful examples of the Comprehensive Health Program is the Barrio Adentro program in Venezuela in which Cuban doctors work in community clinics alongside Venezuelan medical students. Thanks to this program, there is now one primary care physician in Venezuela for every 3,400 inhabitants (as opposed to one for every 17,300 previously). The United States has tried to pressure other countries, especially allies, into sending Cuban doctors home, but this has been largely unsuccessful. After the government of Jean Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in 2004, , Cuban doctors were allowed to remain in the country despite US criticism, as they were one of the only sources of accessible medical care in the country, especially in some of the more remote regions. As it turns out, if these doctors would have been ejected from the country, some of the most critical first responders to the earthquake would not have been in place.

By 2008, 36,500 Cuban doctors were working in 81 developing countries, more than the total number of doctors provided by the World Health Organization, or by all of the world’s wealthiest nations combined.[1] Shortly after the birth of the Cuban Revolution, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, himself a trained physician, noted that many of the newly graduated physicians were reluctant to go to the countryside to provide medical services. He then suggested that once the children of workers and campesinos from these underserved areas had the opportunity to receive professional degrees, they would rush enthusiastically to help. This is indeed what is happening now, but on a global scale.

For more on revolutionary medicine in Cuba, visit: http://www.monthlyreview.org/090112brouwer.php

In the wake of the tragedy in Haiti, it is important to put political differences aside in order to deliver aid to the Haitian people with maximum efficiency. This is an opportunity for the United States and Cuba to improve their bilateral relations by working together. Cuba has opened up airspace normally restricted to U.S. aircraft, to allow for quicker relief flights to Haiti. Former assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense Lawrence Cobb told the Christian Science Monitor that the U.S. should “consider tapping the expertise of neighboring Cuba” by cooperating with Cuban doctors on the ground and using their expertise in dealing with disaster situations, the U.S. could also have more of an impact.

To make a donation so that Haitian doctors trained in Cuba can get essential medical supplies into the country, visit www.medicc.org

Videos from CNN

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2010/01/18/darlington.haiti.cuban.relief.cnn.html

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/01/17/kastenbaum.haiti.la.paz.hosp.cnn?iref=allsearch

Sources

http://www.coha.org/haiti-tragedy-could-provide-opportunity/

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2010/01/more-cuban-medics-arrive-in-haiti-to-assist.html`

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1519306220070626

http://directaction.org.au/issue8/cuban_revolution_50_years_of_accomplishments

http://cuba.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2010/01/15/helping-a-troubled-neighbor-together/

http://www.monthlyreview.org/090112brouwer.php

[1] http://directaction.org.au/issue8/cuban_revolution_50_years_of_accomplishments