respuesta cubana al Lancet (ingles)
It is indeed surprising that The Lancet should have dedicated an editorial to discuss the need for aid in the public health sector in case of a Cuban political transition. I wonder whether the editorialist has visited Cuba, or if he/she is aware of the resilience of a primary health care system that during the worst years of the crisis during the nineties managed to maintain the good health indicators already achieved, and which, by the way, are even now much better than those in several states and cities of the USA, the richest country in the World. Needless to say, aid at that time was negligible, and Cubans managed not only to keep the good indicators, but to continue improving on them.
Instead of thinking what to do to help in a "Cuban Transition Period", The Lancet could urge right now the Bush administration to lift the measures of the embargo that prevent Cuba to acquire direly needed medical equipment, supplies and medicines that could help save lives and that are perversely prohibited, even to third parties, to be sold to Cuba.
It is indeed something of a paradox that this page of The Lancet is shared by another editorial discussing what to do about trachoma so as to decrease the incidence of that already curable disease in the poor World. I wonder whether the editorialist knows of the best effort ever to lower the incidence of blindness in poor countries: the Operación Milagro that is being carried out by Cuban doctors, and that in a couple of years has already surgically treated hundreds of thousands to restore their sight, and by the way, free of charge.
I do not know why The Lancet should echo the call of the Bush government in the case of Cuba. Instead of siding with those who are pouring millions on efforts to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, The Lancet could recommend the US government, and the international community, that the money they are wasting on campaigns towards foreign intervention in Cuba be used to cure the diseased in poor countries, or even within the USA, where there are 40 millions inhabitants that do not have adequate access to health care.
We Cubans are rather suspicious of the good intentions of our powerful neighbors to help us cope with difficulties in transition. We are still convalescent of the US intervention in Cuba at the end of the XIX Century when US troops came to help us gain independence and we ended with such a bad case of meddling in our affairs that we still have the sore of Guantanamo Base to remind us of their good intentions.
Cuba will manage for itself in spite of all those intent on deciding what to do here. Let us Cubans cope with our problems ourselves, and decide whether we need any assistance, and what, when, and from whom, to ask for it.
Sergio Jorge Pastrana
Academia de Ciencias de Cuba.
References: For updated information in English on Cuba's Health Indicators and international cooperation in health care you can go to www.medicc org
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