Dilma Highlights Respect Between Cuban Doctors and Brazilians

The impeached Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff has highlighted the great empathy that exists between Brazilians and Cuban specialists from Más Médicos (More Doctors), a program that for nearly three years has provided health care to 63 million people and is supported by an international agreement with the PanAmerican Health Organization (PAHO). "Long live Cuban doctors!" Rousseff said in an exclusive interview with the digital newspaper Brasil 247, which is featured on its front page today.

Cuban doctors transmit safety and security to patients through looks, touches, reviews of their records and home visits if necessary. They have a vision of medicine that is very important for Brazilian doctors, she explained.

Dilma also declared that Cuban specialists have praised their counterparts from Brazil and particularly appreciate the quality of Brazilian nurses. I think the respect is mutual, she said.

When questioned about the fact that one of the Cubans in the program, Dr. Argelio Hernández Pupo, was elected to carry the Olympic torch on behalf of the town of Vila Nova de Piauí, where he works, Dilma said that it is just a sign of the recognition of his work.

If the provisional government of Michel Temer wanted to exclude Cubans from the project it would create a big problem with PAHO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, in Spanish), since it would be a unilateral breach of contract, she stressed.

Weeks before being made to step down from her position for 180 days and to be subjected to an impeachment process, Rousseff signed a provisional measure that extended, for three more years, the 'Más Médicos' program.

The program currently has more than 18,000 professionals, of which 11,487 are Cuban, distributed in 4,058 municipalities and 34 Indigenous Special Health Districts.