Havana’s medics work around the world: Cuba exports health

"Havana’s medics work around the world: Cuba exports health Print E-mail
By Hernando Calvo Ospina - www.mondediplo.com
Thursday, 24 August 2006

Some 14,000 Cuban doctors now give free treatment to Venezuela's poor and 3,000 Cuban medical staff worked in the aftermath of last year's Kashmir earthquake. Cuba has plans to heal those poorer than itself.

When Hurricane Katrina ripped through the southern United States in August 2005, the authorities were overwhelmed and the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, appealed to the international community for emergency medical aid. The Cuban government immediately offered assistance to New Orleans and to the states of Mississippi and Alabama, also affected by the storm, and promised that within 48 hours 1,600 doctors, trained to deal with such catastrophes, would arrive with all the necessary equipment plus 36 tonnes of medical supplies. This offer, and another made directly to President George Bush, went unanswered. In the catastrophe at least 1,800 people, most of them poor, died for lack of aid and treatment."