- New Ways for Global Health
Cuba offers innovative responses in the management of resources in a bid to support Global Health, according to economist Cristian Morales Fuhrimann, representative of the Pan-American Health Organization and the World Health Organization.
When talking about Cuba, many people wonder: How can small country, a developing country subjected to an economic, financial and commercial blockade by the U.S. government, maintain Global Health, which entails the free coverage and access of its population to healthcare services, while standing out as a paradigm for international medical cooperation?
“One of the keys is related to Cuba’s great capacity to produce knowledge,” said Cristian Morales Fuhrimann, representative of the Pan-American Health Organization (PHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on the island.
“Cuban healthcare professionals are highly qualified, they are trained by combining theory and practice, following a work philosophy based on Primary Health Care, community health focused on health promotion and disease prevention. Their human values allow them to stand closer to the ideal doctor with capacity to work in the care model focused on people, families and communities.
“That training and those values are passed on to foreign students at the Latin American Medicine School, through different cooperation methods, and people interested in applying for self-financing modes to take undergraduate or postgraduate courses in Cuba.
“Cuba is also the country with the highest number of PHO/WHO collaborating centers in the region, so the rest of the world can benefit from scientific events and the result of its world-class scientific and biotechnological products,” he underlined.
That professional and human capacity has been proven in terms of international medical cooperation over the past 55 years and can be presently witnessed in more than 60 countries with the work of thousands of collaborators, in all continents. “That puts on the table opportunities to compensate expenses or obtain benefits in countries with higher resources that can pay for these services, without limiting the solidary cooperation in poor countries and the response after natural and health disasters.”
“The PHO considers it pertinent to recognize the quality of Cuban doctors that go where other people don’t want to, like the most complex areas of Amazonas in Brazil; because they risk their own life to safe other people’s, just as proven during the fight against Ebola in western Africa. That is the reason why, in recognition of the work against natural disasters and epidemics, the WHO gave Henry Reeve Cuban Medical Team the Lee Jong-wook Memorial Award.
With such an example, it is right to market medical services for foreign patients that can afford them, so the Cuban Healthcare System can be funded.
“That medical care is based on such values as the respect for people’s dignity, and it gives priority to the solution of health problems instead of generating more business. That is why, people interested in being treated in Cuba know for sure that they won’t be offered unnecessary services and nobody will benefit from the ignorance of their pathology. Catastrophic expenses are also avoided in families, since they assess needs in each case.
“These international medical and healthcare services offer people a world of scientific development, which is most cases are ranked among the best at international level. Behind every hospital or patient, you’ll find the Cuban Healthcare System and the human warmth of its people,” the representative underlined.
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