Cuban doctors head to Italy to battle coronavirus

[Ghost Dog]

Source: Reuters

HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist-run Cuba said it dispatched a brigade of doctors and nurses to Italy for the first time this weekend to help in the fight against the novel coronavirus at the request of the worst-affected region Lombardy.

The Caribbean island has sent its “armies of white robes” to disaster sites around the world largely in poor countries since its 1959 revolution. Its doctors were in the front lines in the fight against cholera in Haiti and against ebola in West Africa in the 2010s. Yet with the 52-strong brigade, this is the first time Cuba has sent an emergency contingent to Italy, one of the world’s richest countries, demonstrating the reach of its medical diplomacy.

This is the sixth medical brigade Cuba has sent in recent days to combat the spread of the new disease abroad. It has sent contingents to socialist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua as well as Jamaica, Suriname and Grenada...



Read more: https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-cuba/cuban-doctors-head-to-italy-to-battle-coronavirus-idUKKBN219051

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This is also reported by the NYT, which adds:

Cuba built a healthcare system that was the envy of the developing world with economic aid from former ally Soviet Union, though some of those advances have been lost since the communist bloc collapsed. Many Cuban hospitals have fallen into disrepair and Cubans say they have difficulty finding medicine, a situation the government says is largely due to decades-old U.S. sanctions although analysts blame also the inefficient state-run economy. Still, Cuba has one of the highest ratios worldwide of physicians per capita even when excluding those doctors abroad, and its medical brigades for disaster relief continue to earn Havana goodwill worldwide.

"In a time of crisis, the Cuban government, the Cuban people ... have risen to the occasion, they have heard our appeal and they have responded," Jamaican Health Minister Christopher Tufton said on Saturday upon greeting 140 Cuban medical professionals at Kingston international airport. Britain also thanked Cuba last week for allowing a British cruise ship that had been turned away by several Caribbean ports to dock on the island and for enabling the evacuation of the more than 600 passengers onboard...

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/22/world/europe/22reuters-health-coronavirus-cuba.html

[underpants]

1. Cuba - 35 cases, 1 death

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[McKim]

2. We Have a Lot to Learn

We have a lot to learn from Cuban Public Health and Science. Brazil is asking for the Cuban doctors to come back after kicking them out for ideologist reasons. I wish we had some here in the US. I support international scientific cooperation instead of 20th Century Cold War ideas.

[RVN VET71]

3. Remember when America would have been the first nation to do this?

Remember those days? When America was the leader, the nation that other countries looked to for assistance because America was, seriously, considered number 1?

Oh, those were the days, weren't they?

Now America's leader insults and withholds assistance to the States, to his own country -- withholds because "the Federal government is not a shipping clerk?" What the f*ck Dows that even mean? Oh, I see, it means we are all screwed and many of us will needlessly die as the rest of the world struggles along without us.

[JohnnyRingo]

4. Cuba has free college for all.

As a result, anyone motivated to become a doctor can do it. Now they have a surplus and are one of the largest donors to Doctors Without Borders.

[Polybius]

6. This is what Sanders said

It was all he was saying, and the media crucified him for it.

[JohnnyRingo]

7. I know. i got that.

He could have been a bit more articulate or diplomatic about it though. Doesn't help that many see him as a communist either, but that's on him too.

Besides, the bad goes with the good in Cuba and dictatorships are very efficient. There's no bothersome debate or red tape to cut through when enacting either free education or death penalty for public dissent.

[iluvtennis]

5. Very happy this is occurring. We need more of this support across the medical & science communities