RHC Analysis: 2007 - Health in Cuba

RHC Analysis:

2007 - Health Care in Cuba

Though much is still to be done, Cuba has many accomplishments to show
the world in the field of health this year.

The main challenge for the Cuban Public Health system in 2007 was to
maintain the permanent commitment to improving the population's quality
of life and to achieving excellence in medical services. Today, it
shows results that speak for themselves with regard to the efficiency
of strategies and implemented programs.

Allow me to mention two of the most significant -although not the most
im****tant- achievements: that the infant mortality rate was maintained
at around 5 per every one thousand live births, and that life
expectancy reached 77 years, with an increasingly large number of
elderly people with physical and health conditions adequate for a
useful and agreeable life.

These achievements are part of Cuba's plan to reach the level of first
world nations by 2015, on indicators including maternal mortality, and
to establish better control of risk factors affecting Cubans' health.
The strategies devised by the Cuban Public Health Ministry as governing
body, and the strategies drawn up according to the already mentioned
objectives, detail specific actions for all sectors of society.

The recovery of the institutions pertaining to the Ministry of Public
Health was one of the ways of improving medical attention at the
various levels of the system. Excelling in this effort was the
extension of rehabilitation services to all of the country's
polyclinics, as well as the development of constructions to complete
the refurbi****ng of all health care centers.

At the end of 2007, more than 1,900 construction works had been carried
out with this purpose, resulting in 233 remodelled and expanded
polyclinics and 5 hospitals that underwent major repairs, which are now
full in operation with all services and specialties. More than 110 of
the country's 169 municipalities have a rebuilt policlinic, equipped
with the most modern technologies in terms of ultrasound, X- rays,
optometry, ophthalmology, and electrocardiography.

All this without abandoning the commitments -undertaken with Venezuela
within the context of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas- for the strengthening of the second and third stages of the
Barrio Adentro program.

Throughout 2007, the Cuban health care system confirmed that chronic
non-infectious diseases are the primary cause of death, among which
cardiovascular diseases stand out. In response to this situation,
public health authorities and social organizations are giving impetus
to a comprehensive promotion and prevention program aimed at improving
the way of life and eating habits of the Cuban people.

Programs to detect cervical-uterine, breast and prostate cancers
continued to have national priority, as well as the attention given to
the network of institutions that provide treatment for all cancers, of
notable incidence on the island.

These diseases receive permanent monitoring from the public health
centers located in the areas where patients live, as part of a primary
health care system considered by experts as one of the best in the
world.

Cuban biotechnology deserves a similar opinion, with first rate results
in developing vaccines for human and veterinary use, new means of
diagnostics, monoclonal antibodies, medicines, interferon and other
bio-products, in all a total of 38 products to improve the health of
the people.

We should remember that, each year, recombinant streptokinase, the only
one of its kind in the world, saves the lives of around 400 patients
that have suffered heart attacks with a single dose. Also worth
mentioning are the results obtained with the Hepatitis B vaccine, the
application of which has made it possible to immunize all Cubans under
25 years of age against this disease.

Cuba's public health efforts are spread well beyond the island's
borders to dozens of nations around the globe. By the end of 2007, more
than 37 thousand Cuban health volunteers, among them 18 thousand
doctors, were offering their services and solidarity in 79 countries.
Venezuela stood out among these countries, where medical brigades have
already saved the lives of 57 thousand people and have considerably
improved its population's basic health indicators. These doctors are in
charge of 6 thousand offices, 388 Centers for Integral Diagnostics, and
492 Rehabilitation Rooms, and are also dealing with the training of 17
thousand Venezuelan students in the specialty of community integral
medicine.

Another example of the humanist character of Cuban medicine,
demonstrated since the very first years of the Revolution, is the fact
that there are presently more than 12 thousand students from 24 nations
studying at Havana's Latin American School of Medicine, which will
return to their respective countries over the next few years to join
the 5 thousand graduates from that School who are already practicing in
their communities of origin.

Undoubtedly, Operation Miracle deserves special place in this account
of the Cuban public health's efforts and results, a project that
provides free eye surgical to poor patients from all over Latin
America. This ambitious program, created by Cuba three years ago and
boosted by Venezuela for the benefit of peoples in The Americas and the
rest of the world, is carried out under the umbrella of the Bolivarian
Alternative for The Americas or ALBA.

By virtue of this program, almost one million patients from 32 Latin
American and Caribbean nations have been operated on without having to
pay a single cent; most of these surgeries took place at Cuban
hospitals, and others at clinics donated by Cuba to several nations on
the continent, thus contributing to the objective of restoring th sight
of 6 million people in 10 years.

The successful results of Operation Miracle, which also helped tens of
thousands of Cubans in 2007, show that the Cuban Public Health system
is not only for the benefit of Cubans. It's also the expression of the
State's responsibility to guarantee one of its people's most precious
rights as well as an example of how much can be achieved by way of
South-South cooperation, and how much love and dedication Cuba spreads
all over the world.

                                 *
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