Cuba Brings Home 200 MDs from Venezuela to Fight Covid
To deal with the desperate situation in Ciego de Avila
HAVANA TIMES – Faced with the catastrophic panorama that Ciego de Ávila is experiencing due to the covid surge, the Government sent for a ’mission’ of Cuban doctors who were serving in Venezuela. About twenty of them arrived at the Jardines del Rey International Airport on Tuesday and were received by the Minister of Public Health, Jose Angel Portal Miranda. By Wednesday, another large group was scheduled to land, about 200 in total.
“You have not come to supervise, you have come to mobilize, to put your heart to the complex situation, you are going to find many problems, but we know that you have the capacity to solve them,” Portal Miranda told the new arrivals.
When informing of the doctors arrival, the website of the Communist Party of Cuba noted the province presents “a resounding mortality rate that is out of step with the national context.”
The same text specifies that the doctors, “who held management positions” in the mission in Venezuela, will join the health areas of the main municipality and the Provincial Hospital “to also implement a new protocol, designed for the real availability of drugs.”
“At the same time, they are tasked with better management of the human resource capacity so that, for example, in the hours of greater patient care, the medical consultations have more doctors and the wait is shortened,” the report continues.
In a short note, Radio Surco details that the doctors, originally from Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Las Tunas, Villa Clara and Pinar del Río, gave up their vacations “to support this central province with the difficult epidemiological situation.”
It is the second time that the regime uses its international brigades to help in the internal crisis. At the beginning of July, some 200 doctors and nurses of the Henry Reeve brigade joined the health centers of Matanzas, then the epicenter of the pandemic on the island.
Knowledgeable sources informed 14ymedio that they are gathering doctors abroad to tell them that, during their vacations, they will have to go to Cuba “because of the collapse of Healthcare” and “to calm the people.” In recent weeks, there has been criticism of the fact that thousands of doctors are serving abroad while there is a shortage on the island.
However, the return of the brigades, the main source of foreign currency for Havana, is not on the horizon. “The mission will remain,” say the same sources. “They are not going to stop sending doctors to Venezuela.”
This Wednesday, 1,192 new cases of the coronavirus were reported in Ciego de Ávila, which is again in second place in number of infections, only behind Havana (1,445), which has four times the population, and followed by Cienfuegos (1,032).
The desperate situation made the Government send Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca to the provincial hospital on Monday, which, the official press recognized, is in an extreme situation.
Or, could it be that Maduro is reneging on his contract with Cuba for medical services, by simply not paying the fees? Even Miguel Diaz-Canel cannot operate without funds. What happened to the Chavez/Fidel dream of uniting Venezuela and Cuba?
im sure that all of canada has seen the marches here and we realize the issues,however mr president you need to keep your doctors there not in a place where they can also be infected,its a roulette game and your not winning any money this way,its time to rethink your ideas and start doing some good,what happened to all that money the castros made ferom that new shipping dock,what happened to all those charges you made in building a dock that cant be used because of the issues that are created when people and government dont work together for the good of the people , 62 years of nothing but hard times dont you think its time for a change in favor of the people and not just for the way you see things and fair is supposed to be just that ,but we here in this country dont see what the world needs to see come out of cuba ,and if this keeps up ,you wont have anymore people and then where will you go from there,think about the new ways that can help the government and the people,they need to come first
Not cost effective to send out medical personnel to other countries when they are needed there in CUBA. CUBA officials need a reality check, they are just digging their own hole with no positive future to come about with this type of thinking.
There is soo much potential in CUBA, why are they soo blind sighted??? Need to cut their many losses and free it’s people to prosper as well as the country itself.
They are working with a stick and a stone going nowhere!!! Soo many countries have become aware or the some of the conditions there in CUBA after the 11 July protest and soo many are willing to assist with expertise and materials. CUBA just need to reach out and request their help. Look at what already had happen with help from various places.
The reality is that COVID is not one of those serious illnesses that demands greater than normal Doctor attention. That is to say, for those COVID patients who require hospitalization, the greatest demands these patients place upon the health care system is in the medicines surviving COVID requires. The real reason these Doctors are returning to Cuba is political. The Cuban people are aware that while their Doctors are abroad helping other poor countries control this pandemic, Cubans are dying. Its not from a lack of physicians attending to their needs. It is from a lack of anti-inflammatory drugs and antibiotics.
Doesn’t matter how many doctors and nurses are brought home to Cuba to fight covid if the government cannot buy or supply the medicines required for the Cuban people.