Cuban Doctors Save Over 293,000 Guatemalan Lives since 1998

Cuban physicians have saved the lives of 293,693 Guatemalans from November 1998 to December 2014, while free consultations have exceeded 37,557,077 in the same period, an official source reported today. Last year the island's physicians saved the lives of 6,597, while nearly 1,844,476 patients were assisted, the Cuban medical Brigade said in a report, to which Prensa Latina had access.

The number of Guatemalans who have undergone surgery by several ailments since 1998 has reached 430,904, including 27,213 reported last year.

About 136,153 patients received eye surgery in Guatemala, thanks to the Operation Miracle, one of the programs boosted by the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).

With the opening in November of the ophthalmologic hospital in Mixco, a municipality of the Guatemalan department, there are four health centers of this kind assisted by the Cuban physicians in this Central American country, where Guatemalans with low resources have been freely assisted.

The first doctors from the Caribbean island arrived in this country in November 1998, after the passing of the devastating Hurricane Mitch by Central America.

ALBA, founded on December 14, 2004, by leaders Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, is an organization that prioritizes the struggle against poverty and social exclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean.