Cuba’s Health Care System

[Mika]

Cuba’s Health Care System

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Given Cuba’s free education policies instituted after the Cuban Revolution, Cuba has an extremely high percentage of doctors per capita. In fact, Cuba graduates over three times as many doctors per capital as the United States (1). More doctors means better patient per doctor ratio and more personalized care. Furthermore, the Cuban medical system is world renown and people come from all over the world to study it and try to learn how such a small, relatively poor country is providing much better than her neighbors (such as Haiti and the Dominican Republic, both similar in size yet world’s apart in health care).
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On our third day in Cuba, we visited a polyclinic in Eastern Havana called “Policlinico Camilo Cienfuegos” which is a complex of different clinics that services the local population. We met with a Cuban doctor who explained Cuba’s elaborate health care system. In Cuba, there are four levels of care (1) Family Doctors who are assigned to a group of families and provides home visits within the community (2) Polyclinics (3) Hospitals and (4) Specialty Institutes such as eye, heart, lung, etc.

So how does the Cuban health care system work? If you have an ailment, you first receive a visit by your family doctor at your home. If the issue is not resolved, you next head to the polyclinic and so forth. This system allows doctors to cover as much area and patients as possible and ensure that everyone is cared for.

More, plus pictures --> http://thirdeyemom.com/2014/04/24/cubas-health-care-system/

[Judi Lynn]

1. The author in your article linked to an excellent article, with some interesting charts:

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In the current scheme of things, International Medical Graduates are continuously brought in to the U.S. to meet the needs of the growing patient population. Unfortunately nothing bridges the gap, because there just are not enough residency positions and/or funding for teaching hospitals to produce enough doctors to satisfy the entire U.S. population. Taking International Medical Graduates to meet the needs of the U.S. population only adds to the “brain drain” of developing countries around the world. So as we produce fewer doctors, introduce more doctors from other countries; U.S. doctors work harder for less to meet the needs in the U.S. and a lot of the world remains catastrophically underserved.

Cuba leads the world with the lowest patient to doctor ratio, 155:1, while the U.S. trails way behind at 396:1.[6] With a surplus of Cuban doctors, Cuba is able to help ailing nations around the world. They have medical missions in over 75 different countries lead by nearly 40,000 health professionals, almost half of them are doctors.[7] The United States by contrast imports doctors from poorer countries, further contributing to the brain drain of professionals from poorer countries to rich ones.

In Cuba education is free. Room and board, books and amenities are included. Doctors are not burdened by student loans and live comfortably though not extravagantly. Harvard Medical School states in their admissions statement that an “un-married first year medical student” will spend approximately $73,000 for the 2011-2012 academic year. This includes tuition, room and board, books, etc.[8] Now times that by four and you have a whopping $292,000 to shell out to become a Harvard doctor. With interest rates, loan deferments and default charges, you might end up like Michelle Bisutti. She graduated medical school in 2003 with a $250,000 debt, in which by 2010 had increased to $555,000.[9] This may be an extreme case, but the Association of American Medical Colleges projected in their 2007 report that in 2033, students on a 10-year repayment program will only see half of their after-taxes salaries, the rest going to loan repayment.[10]

The cost of medical education in the U.S. causes more and more medical school graduates to turn to higher paying specialties and subspecialties rather than primary care or family medicine. Dr. Thomas Bodenheimer writing for the New England Journal of Medicine, stated that “between 1997 and 2005, the number of U.S. graduates entering family practice residencies dropped by 50 percent,” based on data from the National Resident Matching Program. [11] In the U.S. specialists predominate at a ratio of 2:1 (the reverse of other Western countries) while half of all outpatient visits are made by primary care physicians. [12] This deficit of primary care physicians decreases people’s access to primary care and preventative medicine, causing increases in health disparities and healthcare costs. This is because preventative medicine benefits the patient as well as reduces the number of Emergency Department visits and hospital stays. If there are no primary care physicians to provide preventative care to the population, we see the population suffer as costs continue to rise.

Also:

When working in the U.S., almost every primary care physician I talk to has the same complaint, “Too many patients, and too little time.” They are forced to see 20 to 30 patients a day just to meet pay-incentives and “keep their doors open.” General/Family Practice physicians spend an average of 16.1 minutes with each patient per visit. [16] Meanwhile, 18%, or roughly 48.2 million of the U.S. population under the age of 64 is without healthcare insurance. They have no access to most GP’s or family practice physicians. [17]

More:
http://www.socialmedicine.org/2012/07/30/about/cuba-leads-the-world-in-lowest-patient-per-doctor-ratio-how-do-they-do-it/

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Mika, thanks for throwing more much needed light on this SUCCESSFUL system which is known throughout the world for the RIGHT reasons!