By Ángel Guerra Cabrera on September 30, 2022
Hundreds of Cuban doctors worked with their Mexican colleagues in the care of patients with covid-19 in the most dramatic moments of the pandemic. Photo La Jornada
When President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced the agreement with his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel for Cuban doctors to come to Mexico to provide their services an outcry arose. An unlimited campaign of lies and slander was unleashed against the Cuban professionals by politicians, mostly from the National Action Party (PAN), organic intellectuals of the former regime and rabidly opposing media, which are the vast majority. According to them, “supposed” doctors, spies and indoctrinators would come from the island.
They questioned their professional competence and even the validity of their degrees, they said they were coming to take away the work of Mexican doctors. As if for many years there has been no recognition by the medical community and specialized international agencies of the resounding success and ethical practices of the health system, of the medical sciences and of the medical cooperation that Cuba currently provides to 59 nations.
In a country where we are used to the most vulgar and vulgar mendacity of right-wing politicians and the vast majority of the media against the sayings and deeds of AMLO and the government of the 4T, the impudence of the campaign against the eventual arrival of Cuban doctors was astonishing. Even more so when in Mexico the right-wing -except for the most extremists- is not a friend of the open attack against Cuba because when it has done so, it has not gone well.
There was no shortage of the vile accusation, a copy of the discourse of the U.S. State Department and the Miami counterrevolution, that the medical collaboration provided by the Cuban government is tantamount to human trafficking and exploitation of professionals. Very prominent in the activism against the island’s doctors has been PAN Senator Julien Rementería, in turn connected to Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, who has called for the invasion of Cuba by the U.S. armed forces.
Boronat is the leader of the so-called Cuban Democratic Directorate, based in Miami and financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a recognized front for the CIA. Why all the fuss if, at the end of the day, it will be his patients in Mexico who will be the most authoritative judges of the Cuban doctors? I have no doubt that once again the right wing will remain dressed up with frizzy hair without going to the party because I know perfectly well the harvest of nobility and good practices that Cuban doctors leave everywhere.
It has already been seen in Mexico when a medical brigade from the island spent 40 days attending tens of thousands of patients in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec after the earthquake of September 2017, and left behind a wave of affection and admiration for their exemplary behavior. In the same way as the hundreds of Cuban doctors who worked side by side with their Mexican colleagues in the care of covid-19 patients in the most dramatic moments of the pandemic.
Now the good news is that 270 Cuban specialists have already arrived to work at IMSS Bienestar. There are 92 in Nayarit, 52 in Colima, 38 in Oaxaca, 10 in Zacatecas, 48 in Campeche, 15 in Sonora (Cananea), 10 in Baja California Sur and 2 in the coordination of the brigade at the federal level. As is well known, a call was issued to fill specialist positions in IMSS Bienestar and thousands were not filled. Thus, no Mexican doctor has been or will be displaced by a Cuban colleague.
The agreement between the two countries on the work of Cubans in Mexico is strictly observed. Its basis is the voluntary contract signed by each professional from the island. Cubans attend a three-day induction course upon arrival in the states and then, upon arrival at the hospitals, they go through a stage of familiarization with the clinical protocols, operation and organization. In no case do they see patients until they receive the revalidation of their medical and specialist degrees from the Ministry of Public Education, as well as their professional license.
In the most delirious stage of the anti-Cuban campaign, a doctor presented as eminent by a well-known TV host stated outright that the Cuban Abdala vaccine, by the way, already approved by Cofepris for emergency use, had not yet concluded the clinical protocol, when in Cuba and other countries millions of doses had already been applied and it’s capacity to produce antibodies against the Omicron variant had been proven in one hundred percent of the cases.
Cuba, which fought the pandemic with its own resources and vaccines in the midst of unprecedented economic war, shows a case fatality rate of 0.81 percent in covid-19 patients, compared to 1.53 worldwide and 1.86 in the Americas, and records 97.8 percent of recovered patients in a selected list of ten countries.
The island sent 58 medical brigades to 42 countries and territories to help combat the disease. “Cuba’s successes are the product of health prioritization at the highest level and an admirable commitment by its authorities, Cuban health professionals and the population who also take responsibility for their own health and that of their communities,” said Pan American Health Organization Director Carissa Etienne.
In turn, Dr. Margaret Chan, director until 2017 of the World Health Organization has said: Cuba is not only committed to the health of its people but to the health of the region and other parts of the world thanks to solidarity.
Source: La Jornada, translation, Resumen Latinoamericano – US