Cuba’s medical collaboration, a hope for many in the world

Cuba's collaboration in health is today a feat and a bastion of hope for many people in the world, Samira Addrey, a member of the board of directors of the US organization IFCO-Pastors for Peace, said.

At this time of aggression against Cuba we must highlight the work of the country in terms of health care and international collaboration, said Addrey, who graduated from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), during an interview with Prensa Latina.

“I believe that the example of ELAM, which after 25 years continues to produce doctors for the world, is clear proof that Cuba has exported health, love and friendship to the world while the United States continues to export violence,” she added.

Unfortunately, we are living in a country that has a broken health structure, where people with low economic resources do not count, which does not focus on the human being, Dr. Addrey explained.

Our task as ELAM graduates, as Cuba has trained us, is to return and focus here, being an example that another world is possible, she added.

She extolled the training she received in the Caribbean island “as doctors of science and conscience,” and stressed that “in Cuba, the type of doctor who is trained is humanistic and supportive.”

Samira, who takes care of the ELAM program at IFCO (Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization), highlighted the group’s decades of experience in the solidarity movement with Cuba “and we want to take advantage of that history,” she emphasized.

In 1967, Lucius Walker founded IFCO and in 1988 he conceived the Pastors for Peace project that organized humanitarian aid caravans as a way to support victims of US foreign policy in the region.

Walker promoted 21 Friendship Caravans from 1992 until his death in September 2010, to bring humanitarian aid and medicine to Cuba in yellow school buses, without asking for authorization or a license from US authorities.

In the interview, Samira spoke about defending the legacy of the Reverend Lucius and of the trust in her communities with the training they receive in Cuba.

For Addrey, “Fidel Castro’s dream lives on, we have seen 25 years and we will see 25 more years of a prosperous ELAM.”

Personally, for me, as a 2020 ELAM graduate, Cuba has reinforced many of the values I grew up with, Ghana-born Addrey confessed.

Cuba embraced me and treated me like a daughter during the years I was there. In addition to the medical skills we learned in medical school, there is a level of family, of a sense of being human that I have not experienced anywhere else, she stated.

“In Cuba, everyone shows solidarity with you in whatever you may be and tries to support you in your difficulties,” the doctor said.

She commented that Cuba is part of her heart “and I think it is important for me to pass that on to my daughter. She knows that there is a country far from Ghana where I was born, that we were trained there and that it has an immensely beautiful people.”

I believe that the world should recognize Cuba beyond the things that are popular, you have to be there, you have to feel the people, live with them and feel their humanity, Addrey concluded.