[News] 60 years of Cuban international medical solidarity

[Anti-Imperialist News]

peoplesdispatch.org
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/05/26/60-years-of-cuban-international-medical-solidarity/>
60 years of Cuban international medical solidarity
Peoples Health Dispatch - May 26, 2023
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60 years of Cuban medical cooperation.

In May 1963, a group of Cuban health workers arrived in Algeria to support
the country’s efforts to rebuild after liberation from France. As the team
was assembled, none of its members knew what to expect. “Now when you say
that you have been on a mission people understand what you mean; there is a
history, a tradition. Back then there wasn’t any. We were taking a first
step; we were launching into the unknown,” said Pablo Resik Habib, one of
the doctors who traveled in this contingent, to Cuban journalist Edelberto
López Blanch.

Sixty years later, Cuban medical solidarity is one of the few shining
points in global health. Hundreds of thousands of people have survived
outbreaks of infectious diseases, and millions more were guaranteed access
to basic care, thanks to Cuba’s dedication to supporting sister countries.

The wars waged by the United States after 2001 killed—directly
<https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll>—at least
906,000 people. Many more died as an indirect result of the conflicts, and
even more are still suffering from their consequences. Meanwhile, since the
establishment of the international health brigades, Cuban health workers
have participated in the delivery of more than two million children all
over the world. Sending doctors, not soldiers, as Fidel Castro implied in
the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, makes all the difference.
*Building public health systems together*

The first group that traveled to Algeria counted some 60 health workers,
including doctors, nurses, and dentists. By May 2022
<https://cubaminrex.cu/en/address-dr-jose-angel-portal-miranda-minister-public-health-republic-cuba-76th-world-health>,
605,000 health workers had served in 165 countries. Their involvement
ranges from participating in emergency programs for the response to
infectious disease outbreaks and the aftermath of hurricanes and
earthquakes to the provision of primary health care.

In addition to sending health workers to other countries, Cuba also offers
medical training to people from other countries of the Global South.
Between 2005 and 2016, some 25,000 students went through training
<https://www.seer.ufrgs.br/rbea/article/download/104992/60696>at the Latin
American School of Medicine (ELAM). The number climbs even higher if we
consider students from high income countries, including the US. In that
case, more than 27,000 students received training at ELAM. Differently from
most medical schools, ELAM prioritizes the enrollment of women and students
from peasant, working class, and Indigenous backgrounds. This ensures that
the health workers who graduate from the school understand, at a very
personal level, the conditions in which their patients live.

Students at ELAM are not only trained in medical sciences, but are also
exposed to the idea of health heralded by the revolution. After initial
training, the students are sent to work together with one of the
nurse-physician teams distributed around the country. As Helen Yaffe, an
economic historian specializing in Latin America, points out in her book *We
are Cuba!*, these students are taught to work in a very different way than
medical students in the Global North—with little reliance on high-tech
equipment, and in a spirit of comradeship with the community and
traditional healers.

They are also taught the revolutionary potential of medicine and the
importance of health workers’ participation in anti-colonial and
anti-imperialist movements. For example, this year the students of ELAM marked
the 75th anniversary
<https://www.instagram.com/p/Csj56AuPnMm/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==> of the
Nakba. As of today, 163 Palestinian students graduated from ELAM. 50 more
are still enrolled in undergraduate or postgraduate courses, according to
the Cuban Ministry of Public Health.
*Health for all in practice*

Medical training for foreign students is conducted in parallel to local
efforts to build and strengthen the health workforce. In 2022
<https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o123/rr-5>, Cuba had nine doctors to
1,000 patients, while the US had 2.5 to 1,000. The distribution of health
workers in Cuba is also organized in a very different manner than in most
high income countries. A network of clinics and polyclinics, based on the
principles of primary health care and scattered around the island, ensures
that care is easily accessible to everyone who needs it, regardless of
where they live. In contrast, high income countries—again including the US
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/health/rural-hospitals-pregnancy-childbirth.html>—are
increasingly facing the problem of medical deserts, where rural communities
or specific populations are cut off from essential health care because of
the health workers’ shortage.

In fact, in a period marked by an acute global shortage of health workers,
Cuba’s experience of building its own health workforce and sharing it with
others should be heralded as a way forward for everyone. Yet, in the Global
North it is rarely acknowledged outside of the context of the COVID-19
pandemic response in Italy.

But it is wrong to reduce Cuban health internationalism to technical
assistance during moments of crises. As the efforts put into educating
nurses, doctors, and other health workers coming from other parts of the
world show, Cuba’s international health programs give a glimpse into a
different health landscape than the one dominating the discussion: care
available to everyone, no matter how poor, provided by expert workers
trained through a public education system.

As José Angel Portal Miranda, Cuba’s Minister of Public Health, said at the
76th World Health Assembly, Cuba “has succeeded in complying with the
principle of ‘health for all.’” Cuba is one of the very few members of the
World Health Organization who can say that. What he did not explicitly say
in the speech is that, thanks to the international solidarity heralded by
the island’s health workers, Cuba also reminds others that health for all
is much more than a talking point.

*People’s Health Dispatch** is a fortnightly bulletin published by
the* *People’s
Health Movement* <http://www.phmovement.org/>* and **Peoples Dispatch**.
For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, click*
*here* <https://peoples-health-dispatch.ghost.io/>*.*
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