Revolutionary Doctors Fighting Ebola: The Cuban Light Brigade

[Judi Lynn]

October 28, 2014
Revolutionary Doctors Fighting Ebola

The Cuban Light Brigade

by CHRIS GILBERT


Caracas.

The Ebola epidemic… whereas most of the world tightens border controls and essentially flees from the problem, Cuba opens a new chapter of solidarity and faces the danger. By sending 255 doctors and nurses to West Africa to deal with the latest Ebola outbreak, the heroic island – with few resources except courage, decency and education – has once again given the world a lesson in internationalism.

This latest chapter in Cuban solidarity should be added to a list of episodes that includes medical assistance to numerous countries, but perhaps most saliently Cuba’s central role in defeating South African apartheid. Despite fierce internal struggle and the international boycott, the end of South Africa’s racist regime would not have happened had not massive numbers of Cuban volunteers fought in Angola and Namibia in the 1970s and 1980s.

The latest group of Cuban medical professionals – which arrived last week to Liberia and Guinea Conakry – will not be receiving the privileged medical evacuations that Spanish and North American doctors and priests have benefited from. If they fall ill they will be treated in situ, in the same circumstances as the resident population. Already one Cuban internationalist’s life has been claimed: Jorge Juan Guerra Rodríguez succumbed to cerebral malaria on Sunday in Guinea.

The Cuban doctor Ronald Hernández Torres wrote in his facebook account from Liberia: “I am here carrying out my duty as a revolutionary doctor, helping the African people in the fight against the Ebola epidemic. We arrived yesterday and soon will be in the front line, paying off the debt that all of humanity has with Africa. The only way to prevent the epidemic spreading to the entire world is stopping it here. We are helping so that there will be no more deaths from Ebola in this great continent.”

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/28/the-cuban-light-brigade/

[Old and In the Way]

1. There is a lot we can learn from Cuba and their commitment to healthcare.

The whole lot of them ought are living testimony to "Profiles in Courage". I truly hope we can start to dismantle this silly cold war artifact of isolating Cuba.