Velez: Cuba libre tambal

IN CUBA, an old farmer had a heart surgery to save his life without spending a Cuban peso.

That’s the one thing I remember from the stories shared by a visiting media activist here many years ago. The farmer, she said, was happy and in tears when he told her the story. I was in awe from this story.

Here is Cuba, a country with a low GDP of US$ 6,000, a country that hasn’t seen Mc Donald’s until recently, its people driving 1950s cars and lives on the memory of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, yet its 11 million population gets free health services and medicines in the name of socialismo.

And that’s a revolution that President Duterte wants our new health secretary to learn from. In Duterte’s first cabinet meeting, he asked Secretary Ubrial to go to Cuba.

Philippines and Cuba share a history of being colonized by America, where Cuba exported Havana cigars and mambo, and Philippines exports abaca and pineapples. But the similarities end there. With a trade embargo from US, Cuba is still able to excel in health services far superior than the USA.

Cuba’s socialized health care is effective. It has treated and eradicated diseases such as polio, malaria, measles, and TB meningitis. Compared that to the Philippines, we worry of infectious diseases such as dengue, malaria, TB and HIV.

In the Philippines, people get sick and need to go to the hospitals to get treatment, if they can afford it. The DOH says 70 percent of our doctors are in private institutions like hospitals, serving only 30 percent of the population. Some 700 public hospitals all over the country can barely accommodate the poor crammed in their wards, and most are getting privatized or closed.

Contrast that to Cuba, health workers and even doctors live in health centers stationed in the communities. Cuba calls its health system medicina integral. Health care is more preventive than curative. Community members are taught how to maintain their health through nutrition and sanitation, young people are taught about sexuality education to be aware of reproductive rights. Cuba enjoys high life-expectancy at 78 and infant mortality rates are low. Education is cheaper than hospitalization.

In Cuba, students who study medicine get free tuition and lodging. Our private medical schools here can only be afforded by upper and upper-middle class families.

Cuba has around 70,000 doctors in 2005. They field 50,000 health care workers for medical solidarity to countries in need of medical help, such as the Ebola outbreak in Africa, and the Haiti earthquake rescue. Here, we have a brain drain of nurses and even doctors working abroad as part of the government’s labor export drive to earn dollars.

Cuba has shown how a small poor country can put its heart and mind into giving free universal health care for its people. It can be done, and a president who wants change wants health officials to learn from them.

It would be nice to hear our own stories where nurses and doctors come home and give the poor health services they much need. It’s time to jumpstart our failing health system.

tyvelez@gmail.com

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