Cuba boasts 9 physicians per 1,000 inhabitants

Cuba has more than 100,000 active physicians —its highest figure in history. This ranks among the top nations in the world, 9 physicians per 1,000 inhabitants.

Jose Angel Portal Miranda, member of the Central Committee of the PCC and Minister of Public Health (MINSAP), highlighted that since the Triumph of the Revolution, when barely 3,000 physicians remained in Cuba to solve Cubans’ health issues, to the graduation of the University of Medical Sciences of Havana held in recent days, more than 376,000 health professionals have graduated.

They graduated in Medicine, Stomatology, Bachelor’s in Nursing, and others such as Health Technologies, where 171,362 of them are physicians, the minister pointed out.

The 35,787 foreign students from 141 countries —essentially from Latin America and Africa— graduated in Cuban universities must be also added to this total.

No other developing country has been able to achieve such a feat regarding the training of a highly-specialized human capital, stated Mr. Portal Miranda.

In Cuba’s National Health System, 234,000 out of a total of 485,000 workers are professional in different branches of medical sciences, working in more than 13,000 health facilities around the country.

They are very-well trained and skilled scientifically and technically with a human vocation that makes them greater; guardians of the Cuban citizens’ health as well as people in different part of the world.

More than 10,000 professionals have graduated this school year in different Universities of Medical Sciences around the country. Of that total, 1,535 are foreigners. Hence, 14,662 new health workers begin to work in the services, teaching, and research.

He also highlighted the inclusion of new professionals to the National Health System in times of improvement of the Family Doctors and Nurses Programs paired with the development of science and innovation. Not to mention the implementation of new development programs such as the computerization of health, personalized medicine, nanomedicine, and robotics in medicine.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Diaz / CubaSi Translation Staff