Cuba in Haiti: Selective commendation, selective indignation http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63886

Cuba’s offer to rebuild Haiti’s entire national health service is arguably the most ambitious and impressive pledge made at the UN’s recent donor conference, write Emily J. Kirk, John M. Kirk and Norman Girvan, so why then have its efforts been largely ignored by the media, while those of other governments have been praised?

The aim of Cuba’s contribution is to completely reconstruct the Haitian health care system – and to do so in a sustainable manner. The new system will be based on the Cuban model, embracing primary, secondary and tertiary health care, in addition to the training of additional Haitian doctors in Cuba

What is also significant point is that these are not just ‘pledges’ from Cuba, but rather a development of medical assistance, which has been provided over the last eleven years, and dramatically increased since the earthquake. A Cuban medical brigade has been in Haiti since 1999 and has ‘a presence in 127 of the 137 Haitian communes, saved 223,442 lives, treated 14 million people, performed 225,000 operations and delivered 109,000 babies’[2]. Furthermore much of the promised programme is already in place, as ‘post-quake, 23 of these primary care health centres, 15 community reference hospitals and 21 rehabilitation rooms are up and running’.