Cuban Medical Brigade's 15 Years in Haiti: Thousands of Lives Saved

Havana, Cuba, Dec 4.- Cuban medical cooperation has saved thousands of lives in Haiti, said Dr. Michel Escalona, deputy coordinator of the Cuban medical brigade that has worked in that nation for 15 years. More than 20 million Haitians have been served by Cuban health specialists, who have saved more than 314,000 lives over the last 15 years, Escalona said. Cuban medical personnel performed 373,513 operations and 140,191 of these were major surgical procedures, Granma newspaper reported. The brigade has actively worked to fight cholera in Haiti, where 76,897 cases were reporded since the beginning of an epidemic in October 2010. The contingent has worked in 96 health care centers, and about 65 of them are part of a joint Cuban-Venezuelan program whose objective is to strengthen the health system in Haiti, including 23 community hospitals of reference. As part of their professional development, hundreds of Haitian physicians who earned their medical degrees in Cuba have studied the specialty of General Medicine side by side with staff from the Cuban medical brigade. (Prensa Latina)