A Lesson In Humanity – Cuba’s Revolution Still Going Strong
The government and people of Cuba are currently providing yet another example of the alternative they pose to the so called ‘free market’ economics of the ‘western world’.
While capitalist states are cutting health provision and privatising hospitals to the detriment of patients, Cuba is into the third year of a program aimed at restoring the sight of poor people across Latin America.
‘Miracle Mission’ an ambitious eye-care program, employs hundreds of Cuban health workers who have treated more than half-a-million patients since 2004. All care is provided free of charge, with Venezuela’s left-wing government partly financing the Mission.
Cuba has staffed medical clinics and other social programs in Venezuela for years, an outgrowth of the tight bond between Cuban President Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's socialist leader. In exchange, Venezuela provides Cuba with about 90,000 barrels of oil per day, about half its daily needs.
With a recent, dramatic international expansion, the program has also raised Cuba's profile on the world stage, showcasing Cuban medical expertise while providing badly needed care in poor countries. Cuba has opened clinics and patient screening facilities in twenty-seven nations from Africa and China to the Caribbean and across Latin America.
Despite the important oil imports from Venezuela, Dr. Lazaro Vigoa, deputy director of the Cuban program, dismissed reports that the program has become a big money-maker for Cuba.
"It's a big headache for the Cuban government, not a money-maker," said
Vigoa, who practices at one of Havana's main hospitals, Ramon Pando Ferrer.
"We're doing it for free, so it's not for economic reasons. It's for moral reasons, to help these people who otherwise could not afford this care."
Cuba has long been proud of its health care system and has sent doctors to countries around the globe for decades as part of an outreach program that outnumbers those of the World Health Organisation.
The eye-care program is the brainchild of Castro, said Vigoa, who formed the idea after hearing that participants in adult literacy programs in Venezuela had such poor vision that they couldn't see their reading lessons.
Foreign patients typically receive examinations in their home countries and are then scheduled for surgery in Cuba. Most travel on Cuba's national airline, Cubana.
Once in Cuba, they are bussed to one of several hospitals which provide the necessary surgery. Some stay at hotels that have been converted into patient housing while others stay at Tarara, a seaside resort about 20 miles from Havana.
Despite the massive scale of the program, the Cuban health service still deals with more national patients each year than foreigners.
Katia Triana, who lives outside Havana, said Cuban doctors suggested that her daughter Katherine's detached retina might be best treated in Chile. "The trip to Chile cost $7,000, but I didn't pay a cent," she said. This has been wonderful for my little girl."
With 800 ophthalmologists already trained and hundreds more enrolled,
Miracle Mission has become Cuba’s biggest health program.
"We've grown rapidly, but we're prepared for it," said Dr. Reina Martinez, who runs the Tarara facility. "We have treated patients who have been blind for years. It's very emotional when suddenly they can see again.”
Although the crippling US economic blockade continues, the Cuban people through initiatives like Miracle Mission are remaining true to the principles of their revolution.
People in the ‘western world’ should take inspiration from this internationalist gesture and increase the pressure on the USA to end its illegal blockade now.