On the occasion of a recent article in Efymerida ton Sintakton: https: // www. efsyn. gr / stiles / apopseis / 290471_koyba-ta-eysima-tis-amerikis
by Natasha Terlexi *
The international offer of health services by Cuba has recently occupied the international media generally hostile to everything that this country represents. The fact that the “healthcare industry” in the capitalist world is for profit is so entrenched that it is inconceivable that there could be an alternative. So they attribute to Cuba – even when they praise it – the same incurable disease from which most countries suffer: the notion that health is a product for sale. The reality is very different.
Cuba’s internationalist medical aid is an extension of a healthcare system that had to be built on entirely new foundations after the 1959 revolution, when more than half of the country’s few doctors left it. They also followed the road to Miami taken by the wealthy strata, the capitalists, the landlords and the military whose power had now been overthrown.
It was rebuilt from scratch, based on an economic conception that mobilizes the resources of society at the service of health, education and planned development. It is a universally free system that, starting with neighborhood family doctors, goes up to pharmaceutical research. In any major crisis, such as the current pandemic, it is combined with the solidarity structures developed by the Cuban working people to exercise their power at the local, provincial and national levels. The priorities are shown in the national budget, which is devoted almost 50% to health, education and social assistance (excluding pensions).
The apex of this system is the ethical spirit of its staff. This is the aspect that media like the New York Times and The Economist can least conceive of. You cannot even imagine a doctor who cares for other human beings as an end in itself. And that he does it with the means that he has, wherever he is. Only a society based on solidarity can mold such a person.
Cuba’s international medical assistance programs, of course, existed long before COVID-19, and for many countries and regions of the world they are the only access to health. Cuba applies the principle that “we share what we have, not what we have left over,” while the respective governments renumber the Cuban state according to their capabilities, if any. There are more than 28,000 health workers in 69 countries around the world. These countries seek, through cooperation with Cuba, to close the gap in health care that centuries of colonialism and exploitation have bequeathed to them.
Cuba, close the gap in health care that centuries of colonialism and exploitation have bequeathed to them.
These programs include companies like Misión Milagro, where Cuban doctors assisted by Venezuela have performed eye surgeries on 4 million people in 34 countries, improving or saving their vision for free. In addition, long before the current pandemic, and beginning in the first months after the overthrow of dictator Batista in January 1959, relief operations in cases of natural disasters and epidemics are included. As examples, I mention the treatment of the Ebola virus in Africa, where the contribution of Cuban doctors was crucial in 2014-15; Pakistan in 2004, where after the devastating earthquakes, 2,500 Cuban doctors arrived in the most inaccessible mountain villages and stayed for months treating the victims. Ukraine and Belarus, where institutions in Cuba treated 23,000 children with post-Chernobyl cancers from the 1980s to 2011.
In addition to the above, Cuba has trained tens of thousands of doctors from developing countries in one of the largest medical schools in the world, ELAM. The governments of their countries cover part of the expenses, if they can.
The economic, commercial and financial blockade has been in force against Cuba for 60 years. There is no such universal attempt to arrest the economic development of an entire people in the history of mankind. This is the punishment of the “Northern Empire” – whatever the government of Washington – towards a people who dared to chart their own socialist course in their “backyard”.
Losses caused by the embargo on the Cuban economy in 2020 alone amounted to more than $ 5.5 billion. This damage also affects the health system, and is enormous in consumables, but not only. There is also a lack of specialized drugs that Cuba is forced to purchase on the international market.
As tourism suffers, and the revenues it channels into the aforementioned national budget are shrinking, Washington sees an opportunity to intensify economic pressures (under Trump and now Biden), cutting off the channels allowing Cubans abroad to send remittances, and constantly looking for ways to prevent the fuel supplies that Cuba needs. This has a strong impact on agricultural production and the conduct of all types of commerce and transactions.
It is worth listening to the story of Cuban doctors, appreciating and rewarding their bravery and humanity. It is the humanity of the humble people of Cuba who fight to build a solidary society. To face the murderous US embargo that has plagued them for 60 years is also worth it.
* Natasa Terlexi is responsible for the editorial team of the Diethnes Vima publishing house, which has published 13 titles related to Cuban history and reality.
THE LINK OF THE ARTICLE IS:
https://www.efsyn.gr/stiles/apopseis/292205_oi-giatroi-tis-koybas-gennim…
