These are the patients. Not bad. Dressed and awaiting attention. How many Americans have the RIGHT to wait comfortably for their doctors in settings where OBVIOUS emergencies aren't happening? Everyone ready to invade Cuba to free the poeple of human rights abuses at the hands of tired doctors? I don't think so.
..."Cuban doctors abroad receive much better pay than in Cuba, along with other benefits from the state, like the right to buy a car and get a relatively luxurious house when they return. As a result, many of the finest physicians have taken posts abroad.
The doctors and nurses left in Cuba are stretched thin and overworked, resulting in a decline in the quality of care for Cubans, some doctors and patients said."...
The health care crisis in other countries is real. The USA allows physicians and surgeons to practice in the USA and become wealthy. These medical professionals cannot achieve the income in their own countries they can in the USA. We know that across the board, countries around the world, including Africa are losing MDs and nurses to wealthier systems of reimbursement.
In realizing that, isn't the responsibility of the USA to scale back the wealth accumulation of it's MDs. I don't want to hear about the enormous debt they have to pay after school. There are lots of ways of handling that debt including serving in areas of the USA that are impoverished and struggling to find and keep MDs.....OR...OR...the USA could provide incentives for MDs to practice abroad in countries like Cuba to remove their financial aid loans and/or allow for less or no taxes while practicing abroad.
There are answers to all these issues, if the USA had universal health, single payer systems for the populous of the USA without health insurance and/or inadequate health insurance. The world suffers not only due to American excesses on venues of the environment, but, also when it comes to countries maintaining their 'mind trust' and health care excellence. Time for the United Nations to act to bring equity to the circumstances so well mapped out in The New York Times providing of course it is honest and factual reporting.
Impact of Biotechnology on Cuban Healthcare to Be Analyzed
Havana, Nov 9 (acn) The impact of biotechnology on the Cuban healthcare programs will be one of the main topics for debate on Friday at the 6th Congress on Healthcare and Epidemiology underway in this capital since Monday, with the participation of over 600 experts in the field.
http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2007/1109biotecnologia.htm
Cuba's National Immunization Program protects the island's population from 13 diseases and has eradicated ailments such as poliomyelitis, tetanus, diphtheria, measles, and congenital rubella syndrome.
Four diseases are currently under control thanks to Cuban vaccines, while a new recombinant vaccine is been developed by the island's scientists to fight Hepatitis B.
Since 1992, Cuba has carried out periodical vaccination campaigns that have contributed remarkably to reducing the infant mortality rate and in raising life expectancy up to 78 years.
Other topics of debate at the event will include the Cuban healthcare system's strategies, the success of the Barrio Adentro medical project in Venezuela, and the current situation of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.
