Cuban medics in Haiti put the world to shame

[mudplanet]

"A medical brigade of 1,200 Cubans is operating all over earthquake-torn and cholera-infected Haiti, as part of Fidel Castro's international medical mission which has won the socialist state many friends, but little international recognition."

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cuban-medics-in-haiti-put-the-world-to-shame-2169415.html

Meanwhile, "PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Nearly nine months after the earthquake, more than a million Haitians still live on the streets between piles of rubble. One reason: Not a cent of the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding has arrived.

The money was pledged by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in March for use this year in rebuilding. The U.S. has already spent more than $1.1 billion on post-quake relief, but without long-term funds, the reconstruction of the wrecked capital cannot begin." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39407580/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

Port Au Prince only has a little over a million people in it and they've spent over a billion dollars completely ineffectually. I wonder who is actually getting the money? The DOD? At least the Haitians know they're free.

I don't know what they'd do without us.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Mudplanet, you SHOULD cross-post this article in Editorials & Other Articles!

It should be seen by as many pairs of eyes as possible. The number of DU'ers who browse here is probably not tremendous, since most of us are operating on narrow time allowances a lot of the time.

I can assure you a lot of people will appreciate the chance to see this.

From the article:

~snip~
Wherever they are invited, Cubans implement their prevention-focused holistic model, visiting families at home, proactively monitoring maternal and child health. This has produced "stunning results" in parts of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, lowering infant and maternal mortality rates, reducing infectious diseases and leaving behind better trained local health workers, according to Professor Kirk's research.

Medical training in Cuba lasts six years – a year longer than in the UK – after which every graduate works as a family doctor for three years minimum. Working alongside a nurse, the family doctor looks after 150 to 200 families in the community in which they live.

This model has helped Cuba to achieve some of the world's most enviable health improvements, despite spending only $400 (£260) per person last year compared with $3,000 (£1,950) in the UK and $7,500 (£4,900) in the US, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures.

Infant mortality rates, one of the most reliable measures of a nation's healthcare, are 4.8 per 1,000 live births – comparable with Britain and lower than the US. Only 5 per cent of babies are born with a low birth weight, a crucial factor in long-term health, and maternal mortality is the lowest in Latin America, World Health Organisation figures show. Cuba's polyclinics, open 24 hours a day for emergencies and specialist care, are a step up from the family doctors. Each provides for 15,000 to 35,000 patients via a group of full-time consultants as well as visiting doctors, ensuring that most medical care is provided in the community.

I am just opening a new computer and am so dammed proud to start a Cuba folder with your article as the first one.

Hope the rest of them will be as helpful as yours has been.

Thank you.

Recommending.

[mudplanet]

6. I'm still trying to figure out how this works. When I post in editorial

I get critisized and told it should be in Latin America Or Israel Palestine. When I post a reply to a specific post it shows up on someone else's post and they scratch their head and "say what?" And sometimes when I talk truth to power the mods delete it.

I asked in a response to a post "Could someone please provide a single example of how and where the US acted as a positive, pro-human and pro-democratic force in the last fifty years" and got no response. We should do a poll.

We (the US) has all this power and potential and its all spent serving the devil.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Your point is accurate, so sadly true. There are so many witnesses, living, and dead, to that truth.

I started noticing long ago that posters other than myself were definitely getting their articles on Latin American situations read in "Editorials, and other articles," but I truly don't know at what point they are pitched out. It has seemed to depend upon just which people were moderating, at times.

As for LBN, I would think any article on a Latin American country which ALSO involves the US often is allowed to stay, as long as it meets the requirements in being under 12 hours old, and a genuine news story. I have had a lot of stories bounced out of there immediately which DID meet the time requirement.

It appears also that it helps if the story touches upon something really large in the news, having attracted a large general audience, like the Chilean miners, etc.

Your question about the US acting as a positive, pro-human, pro-democratic force probably won't get a lot of answers if left standing. Certainly not when you remember Kissinger and Condoleeza Rice have made similar statements concerning how much respect or lack thereof they have for Latin Americans' elections of leftist leaders.

Just remember that Henry Kissinger is not particularly safe traveling just anywhere these days, that there are all kinds of people who want to see him tried as a human rights abuser, and he damned well knows it. (He should have known long ago what he should do with that Nobel Peace Prize.) (How many of us, back then, were aware the Nobel Prize people actually have a "tongue-in-cheek" gag prize they give to the world's most ridiculous choices? It's a miracle they can pull it off every time without cracking up.)

[Mika]

11. Even more funny is that Cuba is a Caribbean country, not a LatAm country.

So the mods bouncing Cuba threads from LBN to Latin America is technically incorrect. Sadly, despite pleas from several who point this out, DU does not have a Caribbean forum. :(

:shrug:


:hi:

---

[Bacchus39]

12. it most certainly is a Latin American country

Latin America is a historic and cultural based distinction of people and geography, it is not a geologic division of the earth. Mexico is in North America but part of Latin America. Surinam, in South America, is not a Latin American country. comprendes??

[social_critic]

2. Fidel Castro is retired

They are not "Fidel Castro's". He has retired. He doesn't own them.

[Mika]

4. You are correct. The Cuban people run Cuba.

The Castros aren't the doers of the good or the bad in Cuba. They didn't create the world class education systems or medical systems out of thin air, such as the Henry Reeves Brigade. The Cuban people do these things. The good stuff, and the bad stuff. It is they who are admired all over the world for their good deeds, and it is they who take responsibility for their (government's) actions. They do this under the austere conditions of the US extraterritorial sanctions that puts them all under a lot of pressure. But still, Cuba is a good global partner and neighbor, due to the works of the vast majority of the good and decent Cuban people.


Hasta la victoria siempre!

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[Mika]

3. Thank you for posting this much overlooked story.

Something of interest relating to this story that reveals so much about Cubañia: the Cuban Ministry of Health's humanitarian Henry Reeve Brigade is named after an American doctor.

Here's another article on Cubans in Haiti

FIELD NOTES
CUBAN-TRAINED DOCTORS IN HAITI FOR THE LONG HAUL
http://www.globalhealthmagazine.com/field_notes/field_notes3/

Viva Cuba!

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[dipsydoodle]

5. Not a cent.......

Just lies you can believe in from HRC.

Very rarely , if ever , do the telephone number sizes of aid become reality. It's all just show, puff and nonsense.

[Bacchus39]

7. not a cent more than the 1.1 billion already spent by the US on disaster relief

as of September 28 when that article was written.

[dipsydoodle]

8. The subject here is Haiti

.

[Bacchus39]

9. yep, so I'll take a quote from the OP to assist you

The U.S. has already spent more than $1.1 billion on post-quake relief, but without long-term funds, the reconstruction of the wrecked capital cannot begin."

[Downwinder]

13. How much of that 1.1 billion was a charge off on Navy ships and crews?

[Bacchus39]

15. I don't know, the US certainly has provided disaster relief aid

the hold up, as of September when that article was published, was for long term rebuilding funding. the article says so.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Chomsky Post-Earthquake: Aid to Haitian Popular Organizations, not Contractors or NGOs

Chomsky Post-Earthquake: Aid to Haitian Popular Organizations, not Contractors or NGOs
Written by Keane Bhatt
Monday, 08 March 2010 19:28

~snip~
Keane Bhatt: Recently you signed a letter to the Guardian protesting the militarization of emergency relief. It criticized a prioritization of security and military control to the detriment of rescue and relief.

Noam Chomsky: I think there was an overemphasis in the early stage on militarization rather than directly providing relief. I don’t think it has any long-term significance...the United States has comparative advantage in military force. It tends to react to anything at first with military force, that’s what it’s good at. And I think they overdid it. There was more military force than was necessary; some of the doctors that were in Haiti, including those from Partners in Health who have been there for a long time, felt that there was an element of racism in believing that Haitians were going to riot and they had to be controlled and so on, but there was very little indication of that; it was very calm and quiet. The emphasis on militarization did probably delay somewhat the provision of relief. I went along with the general thrust of the petition that there was too much militarization.

KB: If this militarization of relief was not intentionally extreme but rather just a default response of the US, is it just serendipity that there is a massive troop presence available to manage the rapidly mounting popular protests post-earthquake? Surprisingly large, politicized group comprised of survivors has already mobilized around demanding Aristide’s return, French reparations instead of charity, and so on.

NC: So far, at least, I don’t know of any employment of the troops to subdue protests. It might come, but I suspect a more urgent concern is the impending disaster of the rainy season, terrible to contemplate.

KB: Regarding relief work, aside from Partners in Health, Al Jazeera noted that the Cuban medical team was the first to set up medical facilities among the debris and constitutes the largest contingent of medical workers in Haiti, something that preceded the earthquake. If their performance in Pakistan is any indicator, they will probably be the last to leave. Cuba seems to have an exemplary, decades-long conduct in foreign assistance.

NC: Well, the Cubans were already there before the earthquake. They had a couple hundred doctors there. And yes, they sent doctors very quickly; they had medical facilities there very quickly. Venezuela also sent aid quite quickly; Venezuela was also the first country and the only country at any scale to cancel totally the debt. There was considerable debt to Venezuela because of PetroCaribe, and it’s rather striking that Venezuela and Cuba were not invited to the donors’ meeting in Montreal.

Actually the prime minister of Haiti, Bellerive, went out of his way to thank three countries: the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Venezuela for their rapid provision of aid. What Al Jazeera said about Pakistan is quite correct. In that terrible earthquake a couple of years ago, the Cubans were really the only ones who went into the very difficult areas high up in the mountains where it’s very hard to live. They’re the ones who stayed after everyone else left. And none of that gets reported in the United States. But the fact of the matter is, whatever you think about Cuba, its internationalism is pretty dramatic. And the people who’ve been working in Haiti for years have been awestruck by Cuban medical aid as they were in Pakistan, in fact. That’s an old story. I mean, the Cuban contribution to the liberation of Africa is just overwhelming. And you can find that in scholarship, but the public doesn’t know anything about it.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2394--chomsky-post-earthquake-aid-to-haitian-popular-organizations-not-contractors-or-ngos

[Kurovski]

16. Kick. (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

17. Kicking.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: