Cuban medics a big force on Haiti cholera frontline

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Cuban medics a big force on Haiti cholera frontline
Fri Dec 3, 2010 4:57pm GMT

By Pascal Fletcher
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - They don't send out press releases, don't have public information officers and their contacts are not widely publicized by the huge international humanitarian operation helping cholera-hit Haiti.

But when the United Nations appeals for more doctors and nurses to combat the deadly disease that is killing dozens by the day, it is to Cuba's medical brigade that U.N. officials are likely to turn to first.

With a tradition of service in the world's poorest and most forgotten states, the Cubans are a major frontline force in the multinational response to the raging epidemic, which has killed at least 2,000 people and probably more, since mid-October in the impoverished country.

While many Western aid workers crowd Haiti's capital, where more than 1.3 million vulnerable homeless survivors of the January 12 earthquake are crammed into tent camps, Cuba's medics are seeking out cholera victims in hard-to-reach rural hamlets.

Read more: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE6B24G620101203?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

[uppityperson]

1. k&r for helpers

[Lucinda]

2. Thank you!

[roody]

3. wonderful humanist values

great article

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Castro even volunteered to send medical teams and other aid workers after Katrina

It should be no surprise that Bush turned him down.

[crikkett]

8. Can you imagine the reports of the horrors they'd have seen post-Katrina

and what Fidel Castro would have done to make sure they never left the forefront of our minds.

But as it was our own news did a good job for us.

[Prometheus Bound]

5. Cuba saves lives in cholera-stricken Haiti

Cuba saves lives in cholera-stricken Haiti
by: W.T. Whitney
December 2 2010
An earthquake killed 250,000 Haitians in January. A hurricane struck Nov. 5, shredding tarpaulins, shelter for 1.3 million homeless. Cholera arrived in mid-October, infecting 80,000 by Nov. 30, and killing almost 2,100. Experts predict that over six months, cholera will sicken half a million.

Cuban doctors led in responding to earthquake injuries. They've now cared for 40 percent of cholera victims. Over 900 doctors and other health workers are staffing 36 cholera treatment centers. UN spokesperson Niguel Fisher reports that Cubans are operating most of these CTCs throughout Haiti.

They've saved lives. Overall, 2.3 percent of 69,776 infected people have died, but of the 25,521 of infected persons attended by Cuban doctors, less than one percent died. As of Nov. 27, the Cuban teams had gone seven days without a cholera death. Argentinean physician Emiliano Marisca, trained in Cuba and working in Haiti, attributes success to trust Cuban doctors have earned by serving in Haiti for 12 years and by spreading out into remote areas to provide care.

Physicians associated with Doctors without Borders are in Cuba also. Joined by Haitian technicians and aides and staffing urban hospitals and 20 CTC's, 150 of them had cared for 16,500 cholera patients by mid-November. Chief of mission Stefano Zannini expressed "concern that after five weeks, two actors were providing 80 percent of the medical attention," meaning the Cubans and his own group.

UN humanitarian relief specialist Valerie Amos put out a call Nov. 24 for 350 more physicians and 2,000 nurses. Cuba announced that 300 members of the Henry Reeve medical brigade, disaster relief specialists, would go to Haiti to provide coverage for 12 additional CTCs. Their involvement will bring the total number of Cuban medical professionals combating the epidemic to 1,300, including dozens of Latin American School of Medicine graduates from 18 countries, Haitians among them. Several hundred additional Cuban doctors serve in Haiti on long-term assignments.

Norway, Venezuela and Brazil have supported the Cuban medical teams, contributing or paying for supplies.

The corporate media's' silence on the Cuban response annoys Angel Guerra Cabrera, writing in the Mexico City daily La Jornada: "I've lost count of the dozens of reports and interviews with ... NGOs inside and outside Haiti in which Cuban collaboration forms no part of the story."

<snip>

Of $5.3 billion promised for earthquake reconstruction in March, rich nations have delivered only two percent. Washington is delinquent on its entire $1.15 billion commitment. As of mid November, donors had supplied only $5 million of $164 million requested by the UN for cholera relief.
http://peoplesworld.org/cuba-saves-lives-in-cholera-stricken-haiti/

[Tanuki]

6. Cuba's Henry Reeve Brigade

I was curious about the man for whom this medical group is named, so I looked it up:

(edited to add text, as the wikilink goes to a different Henry Reeve!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Reeve_(soldier)

Henry Reeve (1850—1876) was a Brigadier General in Cuba's 'Ejército Libertador' - more commonly known as the 'Ejército Mambi' - during the Ten Years' War (1868-1878).

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA on April 4, 1850 and died in Matanzas, Cuba on August 4, 1876. Reeve was 27 years old at the time of his death, and had served in the Cuban Army for 7 years having participated in over 400 battles against the Spanish Army.
Upon becoming aware of the Cuban uprising initiated at 'La Demajagua' by Carlos Manuel de Cespedes in 1868, he promptly volunteered. He arrived in Cuba in 1869 aboard the ship Perrit as part of an Expeditionary Force.

The expedition was ambushed by the Spanish Army while unloading and Reeve was taken prisoner along with many others. A Spanish firing squad shot the group, and left them unburied and presumed dead. Reeve was wounded but had enough strength to creep away, and was found by units of the Cuban Army.

He was known as 'Enrique - El Americano' and nicknamed "El Inglesito" by Ignacio Agramonte y Loynáz, and he quickly rose under his command. Reeve in turn gave Agramonte his nickname: "El Mayor". He served with distinction initially under Agramonte and subsequently under Máximo Gómez y Báez.
Under Agramonte he participated in many actions, including the rescue of Julio Sanguily in 1871 where Agramonte, Reeve, and 34 others overcame a superior Spanish force of 120.
In one critical action he jumped over an artillery battery, lifting the morale of the Cuban fighters but was seriously wounded on a leg. For his actions he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.
Exposed to the harsh jungle conditions, he was told he would never walk or ride a horse again. Reeve persevered and with metallic braces he was able to walk, but had to be strapped to his mount in order to be able to ride his horse. He kept leading the famed Camagüey Cavalry Corps throughout the balance of his life.

........
In response to Hurricane Katrina, Cuba assembled 1,586 humanitarian doctors to offer to assist the United States. The offer was declined, and on September 19, 2005 Fidel Castro created the Henry Reeves International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disasters and Serious Epidemics in honor of him.

[FLPanhandle]

7. Good for them.

I disagree with Cuba's lack of a democracy and repression of dissent, but I have to applaud their efforts here.