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Mike Rows His Boat

(389 posts)
Fri Jun 15, 2018, 03:06 PM Jun 2018

Cuba Sends Teams of Doctors to Assist Guatemala After Volcano




Cuba Sends Teams of Doctors to Assist Guatemala After Volcano


A team of 20 physicians from the Cuban Medical Brigade (BMC) will join their 26 comrades who are working tirelessly to stabilize the communities most affected by the country’s recent natural disaster, beginning in the Escuintla department.

Authorities have recovered at least 110 bodies and counted 197 missing people, 54 injured and more than 1.7 million affected in the Sacatepequez, Chimaltenango and Escuintla departments.

Cuban doctors are teaming up with local medical centers, working 24-hour revolving shifts to meet the medical demands of the millions of wounded and destitute.

- -

While Yuri Batista, the national coordinator of the BMC, says there are 431 brigade members with different specializations working in 16 departments in Guatemala. Among them are 245 doctors, 136 nurses, and other personnel. Some of them are already in their second or third medical mission.


https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Cuba-Sends-Teams-of-Doctors-to-Assist-Guatemala-After-Volcano-20180613-0028.html



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Cuba Sends Teams of Doctors to Assist Guatemala After Volcano (Original Post) Mike Rows His Boat Jun 2018 OP
Good for these Cuban doctors and other medical workers. They do it to help PEOPLE, Judi Lynn Jun 2018 #1
Cuba named their largest disaster brigade after an American hero - Henry Reeve. Mike Rows His Boat Jun 2018 #2
Wow, talk about dedication. Dr. Felix Baez actually was stricken by ebola, Judi Lynn Jun 2018 #3

Judi Lynn

(160,515 posts)
1. Good for these Cuban doctors and other medical workers. They do it to help PEOPLE,
Fri Jun 15, 2018, 09:11 PM
Jun 2018

not to make themselves wealthier.

Their brand of real medicine certainly separates the wheat from the chaff, to use a biblical expression.

I remember they sent so many people to Haiti after their earthquake, then to treat the people stricken in the subsequent horrendous disease outbreak following, as brought in to them by U.N. "Peace" workers, after their assignment in a disease-ridden country.

Most sane people would remember this, as well:

Cuba leads fight against Ebola in Africa as west frets about border security

The island nation has sent hundreds of health workers to help control the deadly infection while richer countries worry about their security – instead of heeding UN warnings that vastly increased resources are urgently needed

Monica Mark in Lagos
Sat 11 Oct 2014 19.05 EDT

As the official number of Ebola deaths in west Africa’s crisis topped 4,000 last week – experts say the actual figure is at least twice as high – the UN issued a stark call to arms. Even to simply slow down the rate of infection, the international humanitarian effort would have to increase massively, warned secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.

“We need a 20-fold resource mobilisation,” he said. “We need at least a 20-fold surge in assistance – mobile laboratories, vehicles, helicopters, protective equipment, trained medical personnel, and medevac capacities.”

But big hitters such as China or Brazil, or former colonial powers such France and the UK, have not been stepping up to the plate. Instead, the single biggest medical force on the Ebola frontline has been a small island: Cuba.

That a nation of 11 million people, with a GDP of $6,051 per capita, is leading the effort says much of the international response. A brigade of 165 Cuban health workers arrived in Sierra Leone last week, the first batch of a total of 461. In sharp contrast, western governments have appeared more focused on stopping the epidemic at their borders than actually stemming it in west Africa. The international effort now struggling to keep ahead of the burgeoning cases might have nipped the outbreak in the bud had it come earlier.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/12/cuba-leads-fights-against-ebola-africa

They have always been known all around the world, everywhere but here, for their dedication to their work and to helping people, and they have always been highly value. There is no doubt they are sorely needed in Guatemala, and that they will do their very best.

Still going strong ever since the Revolution, and they do it, the ones who don't move to the US for the big bucks, because they are decent, humane, moral people.

Good for every one of them.

Thank you, Mike.

 

Mike Rows His Boat

(389 posts)
2. Cuba named their largest disaster brigade after an American hero - Henry Reeve.
Fri Jun 15, 2018, 11:33 PM
Jun 2018


Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade receives prestigious award
The Brigade is recognized for life-saving work in many of the world's worst natural disasters and epidemics

Geneva, 26 May 2017 (PAHO/WHO) - The Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade (HRIMB) of Cuba was awarded the prestigious 2017 Dr Lee Jong-wook Memorial Prize for Public Health at a World Health Assembly (WHA) ceremony today.

The USD100,000 award and plaque was received by Cuba's Minister of Health Dr. Roberto Morales Ojeda on behalf of the HRIMB, in recognition of its emergency medical assistance to more than 3.5 million people in 21 countries affected by disasters and epidemics since the founding of the Brigade in September 2005.

The HRIMB has "spread a message of hope throughout the world," said the award presenter, John Linto, president of the Korean Foundation for International Health Care (KOFIH). Linto explained that the Brigade's 7,400 voluntary health care workers have treated more than 3.5 million people in 21 countries ravaged by many the world's worst natural disasters and epidemics throughout the past decade. He added that an estimated 80,000 lives have been saved as a direct result of the Brigade's front-line emergency medical treatments to patients in these countries.

The HRIMB was established by more than 1,500 Cuban health professionals trained in disaster medicine and infectious disease containment. It is integrated into Cuba's Ministry of Public Health, which has over 40 years of medical aid experience.


More ...
https://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13375%3Acubas-henry-reeve-international-medical-brigade-receives-prestigious-award&catid=9246%3A70-wha-news-&Itemid=42353&lang=en





Judi Lynn

(160,515 posts)
3. Wow, talk about dedication. Dr. Felix Baez actually was stricken by ebola,
Fri Jun 15, 2018, 11:49 PM
Jun 2018

and his associates worked to bring him out of danger, and did.

So cool he was there himself to be one of the recipients of the award. My goodness. He's a double hero, by now, isn't he?
No doubt he made a whole lot of fans and admirers out of people who were formerly simple strangers in Africa, and when he got back to Cuba.

What a terrifying disease. Those guys really knew what they were doing, didn't they?

People like that just don't grow on trees. It takes real character, and people living for the right reasons.

Thanks for that great article from the United Nations.

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