Cuba's health work cannot be excluded from the history of Latin America

The fact that Latin American Medicine Day was established in honor of the birth of an eminent Cuban scientist, Carlos Juan Finlay, is not the only thing that links Cuba with such an important celebration, since this Caribbean island, during the last decades, has played a leading role in the development of medicine in the region.

The Revolution had barely been consolidated when in 1960, a medical brigade was sent with urgency to Chile after the occurrence of a strong earthquake in that country. It was an extraordinary display of solidarity with a Latin American people, especially if one takes into consideration that, according to history records, by the end of 1959, only half of the 6,000 health professionals working in the Island before the defeat of the Batista regime, remained in Cuban soil.

With the emergency in Chile, Cuban medicine took the first steps towards its Latin American and third-world orientation. In other words, a revolutionary model of Medical Sciences emerged, which did not conceive health care as a mere business, but rather placed the patient as its core target.

Over the years, one of the principles of medical collaboration in the Greater Antilles has been its implementation under conditions of freedom for both parties, taking into account humanistic values. Researcher Michele Santana, who has written about these matters, emphasizes bilateral consensus and political will; channeling mostly through central and local governments, seeking to strengthen or create the infrastructure that allows sustainability; and the contribution of highly qualified human capital.

Cuban medical collaboration has not been restricted to the specific actions in health matters that the Island develops in other countries in the area; it has also included the training and instruction of foreign professionals. An example of this is the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), located east of Havana, where students from nearly 40 countries have been trained since its founding in November 1999, according to information published in the Cuban Journal of Public Health.

Cuban doctors have left a trail of humanism after their passage through several Latin American nations. The people of Mexico and Venezuela, where thousands of professionals currently provide their services, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua… have known the technical-professional and ethical integrity of the army of white coats, as Fidel Castro labeled them.

However, specific political circumstances have led to negative experiences in some nations of the hemisphere in the last six years.

Such was the case of Brazil. Cuban medical collaboration, channeled through the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) since 2013 as part of the Más Médicos Program, was interrupted after far-right Jair Bolsonaro won in that country’s presidential elections. He made accusations and statements markedly hostile against the medical brigade of the Greater Antilles at the end of 2018. In the South American Giant, Cuban health workers stood out for providing assistance in places where not even Brazilian professionals had access to work, such as Amazonian villages, favelas and intricate communities.

The following year, the decision of the Ecuadorian authorities not to continue the agreement would put an end to Cuban medical collaboration in that nation. Meanwhile, the right-wing coup d'état in Bolivia, in November 2019, meant the abrupt interruption of the island's health mission in the Andean nation.

These events have been cleverly inserted into the rhetoric of reactionary sectors that question the legitimacy of Cuban medical collaboration. Despite this, the enormous social legacy of Cuba's health work in Latin America cannot be excluded from contemporary Latin American history.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff