The Cuban doctors
Why does our press never mention the Cuban doctors helping in Haiti?
Not only are they not mentioned but also deleted from the lists that state the countries that are helping in Haiti. This happened in “El Pais” in the issue published on 15th of January.
Is it because up to now nobody has been to Cite Soleil, where the Cuban doctors are working? Or is it because they don’t want to see them?
The Cuban doctors have already been in Haiti for 12 years. There are more than 400. They haven’t even got their own homes. They share houses with the locals. They live with and like them.
They go to places where there has never been a doctor before. They give medical support in the poorest areas. Areas where nobody ever wanted to work before.
152 Cuban doctors were in Porto Prince at the time of the earthquake.
They improvised under extremely difficult circumstances and erected two hospitals in tents, in order to help the local people from the very first moment. The actual building where they worked before got destroyed. More doctors came from the rest of Haiti and from Cuba to offer first aid.
A thousand people were attended by them from the very first moment.
The Cuban doctors have been working in 6 different sanitary centres and on the night of the 14th, they had already attended 2000 people and carried out 111 operations.
Whilst donations, food and equipment keep being retained in the airports for so called security reasons, the security diminishes proportionally with the rise of hunger and desperation of the population.
The food should be distributed as quickly as possible amongst the population, unless it is considered that the people of Haiti can stay without food for a couple of days; unless the helpers are busy doing something else.
At the same time it seems that the Cuban doctors are not governed by the security dictated by the UN and the marines. They give the 1st world a lesson in first aid.
President René Preval:”The people of Haiti say that after God come the Cuban doctors”
Around a thousand of the local doctors were educated in Cuba. Doctors who can now help their fellowmen.
http://www.goodnesstv.org/en/videos/voir/45663: Medicos cubanos salvan vidas en Haití.
Raymundo Gómez Navia (AIN)
Puerto Prince, 16/01/10(AIN): Dr Carlos Alberto Garcia, coordinator of the Cuban Medical Cooperation in Haiti, informed today that the Cuban sanitary workers will work continuously in various medical centres in the capital. Together with the support of the fishermen and other sectors they will work night and day. Surgeons will work 18 hours a day and more, in order to assist the Haitian population in the best possible way.
An important group offers their help in Aquin, Oakay and other locations. The demand is much bigger then the help being offered at the moment.
“University Delmas 33” hospital, one of the most important of Puerto Prince, was able to re-open at 7 o’clock Wednesday morning. The hospital suffered major damage the night before and was without doctors and resources in order to be able to work.
Well known hospitals like Rennaissance and Ofatma are two more centres where Cuban specialists can be found.
The heroism of the Cuban staff as much as the tragedies that this capital suffers after the earthquake is impressive; like the little boy who was taken to the university hospital by the rescue brigades after having spent three days buried under the ruins of a building.
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