Cuba's Global Medical Outreach – a news chronology

(From stories compiled by FOCAL, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas)

2005

January 24: A Cuban medical team is in Sri Lanka assisting the victims of the tsunami that crashed into several Asian and African countries last month. The medical team, composed of 16 physicians, two nurses, two hygiene specialists, three experts from Cuba's biological and pharmaceutical laboratories and an engineer, is stationed some 80 miles from the capital, Colombo. The Cuban medical brigade is offering medical services in the town of Galle where the tsunami affected a large part of the area's 80 thousand residents. The medical professionals' first tasks have been assisting some 1,400 elementary and high school children as well as residents of a senior citizens home and an orphanage. (Radio Habana Cuba, 24/1/05)

January 31: Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, said that his government appreciates the aid offered by Cuba. He added that the Cuban government has given its maximum support by sending medical personnel and medicine. The Sri Lankan official was speaking to journalists from Cuban television and Granma newspaper. (Radio Habana Cuba, 31/1/05)

February 7: Cuba and Indonesia explored the possibility of mounting a cooperation program, mainly in the field of health, during an encounter on the issue held at the Dharmais National Cancer Center in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. Attending the meeting were important representatives in health care in Jakarta, and from the Cuban pharmaceutical industry, as well as Cuban ambassador Miguel Angel Ramírez. (Radio Habana Cuba, 7/2/05)

March 29: More than 18,000 children with health problems believed linked to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine have received treatment in Cuba over the last 15 years, officials said. The children receive treatment at a coastal sanatorium at Tarara, east of Havana. Cuba pays for all medical treatment, room and board. The average stay is 2 1/2 months. About 250 children are at the sanatorium at any one time. They live in houses surrounding the medical facility, often with their parents. When the program began, most of the young patients suffered from leukemia, other forms of cancer and cerebral palsy - health problems doctors believe are related to the radiation. (Canadian Press, 30/3/05)

May 5: According to Fidel Castro, Cuba will extend to other Latin American countries the benefits of one of the health care programs it currently maintains with Venezuela. During a televised address, Castro said that, in a joint effort by Cuba and Venezuela, some 100,000 disadvantaged people throughout the continent will receive free eye care on the island. The idea is to expand the "Mission: Miracle" initiative, an eye care plan originally established by agreement with Venezuela to benefit citizens of that country and that last year alone restored the eyesight of 20,000 clinically blind individuals. (AP, 5/5/05)

May 8: The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez announced that his country and Cuba are to initiate a plan to offer operations on the island free of charge to poor people with visual problems in Latin America and the Caribbean. "This is Mission Miracle. We want to get it underway soon to help our brothers and sisters with visual problems in a situation of poverty in any Latin America or Caribbean country; that is what Venezuela and Cuba are doing," he affirmed on his weekly Sunday radio and TV program "Aló presidente." The Venezuelan leader explained that if the mechanism is accepted by interested countries and communities in the region, it could "bring people with visual problems to Caracas for evaluation" and then send them on to Cuba for operations. (Granma International, 8/5/05)

May 30: Cuban medical brigades that arrived in Honduras to help out in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch are to leave the country following a decision made by the local government. In statements to the press, Honduran Health Minister Merlin Fernandez said that the departure of the Cuban doctors was a decision taken by a tripartite commission, made up by the Medical Association, the government and the School of Medicine. The minister said that the presence of some 120 Cuban doctors who provide free services in the 18 departments that comprise Honduras represent expenses of 14m lempiras (900,000 dollars) for the government every year. "Obviously, we will not abandon the communities; we will seek mechanisms to generate more resources so that Honduran doctors can replace them," said the minister. Alberto Gonzalez Polanco, Cuban ambassador in Tegucigalpa, said that the Honduran Foreign Affairs Ministry still had not informed him of the decision. (Notimex, 30/5/05)

May 31: With support from Miami, a group of Cuban doctors are developing a small but growing independent network that for the first time provides primary health care in some areas of the island as an alternative to similar government-regulated services. The network is comprised of several dozen doctors, nurses and collaborators who provide basic home-based health care for sick people without resources in Havana, Pinar del Río, Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos and Ciego de Ávila. The network is maintained with financial support, medicines and equipment donated by Miami-based organizations. (El Nuevo Herald, 31/5/05)

July 4: Since 1990, communist Cuba has treated free of charge 18,000 Ukrainian children for hair loss, skin disorders, cancer, leukemia and other illnesses attributed to the radioactivity unleashed by the 1986 power plant explosion in Chernobyl, the worst civilian disaster of the nuclear age. Up to 800 children travel to the Tarará Pediatric Hospital each year for at least two months, accompanied by parents or tutors. Some stay years. Most get treatment for hair loss, spending 15 minutes a day under an infrared light after a lotion made from human placenta is applied to their heads. Hair grows back in 60 percent of cases, said Dr. Giraldo Hernández. Many children suffer from vitiligo, a patchy loss of skin pigmentation, which is treated with another placenta-based lotion and lots of sunlight on the beach. Psoriasis is also common. More serious cases of cancer require chemotherapy or surgery. Six leukemia patients have received bone marrow transplants in Cuba. (Reuters, 4/7/05)

July 13: Cuba's communist government is expanding a humanitarian mission that has already sent a fifth of the island's doctors to work in Venezuela, committing more aid to its close ally as Cuba receives massive shipments of Venezuelan oil. The Venezuelan government says the program involves about 20,000 Cubans, including more than 14,000 physicians -- an estimated 20 percent of Cuba's doctors. Fidel Castro has pledged to have up to 30,000 health care workers in Venezuela by the end of the year. But so many doctors have gone to Venezuela that some Cubans complain health care on the island is suffering. Castro insists they are mistaken, and that there are enough doctors to go around. Both countries, he says, are reaping the benefits of cooperation. "This is the first time I've left Cuba, and I've never seen anything like this," said Dr. Leonardo Hernandez, 27, checking the pulse of a Venezuelan 2-month-old boy in a home where wires dangled from light fixtures and concrete walls were covered in grime. When he and his colleagues arrived two years ago, they found malnourished children and widespread diarrhea. Now, they say, vitamins are making the children healthier, and there have been vast improvements in sanitation. Cuban doctors who accept an invitation to work in Venezuela receive an extra stipend of $186 a month from the Venezuelan government, while Cuba continues to pay their families their regular salaries, commonly in the range of $25 a month. (AP, 13/7/05)

July 26: Fidel Castro said that "Operation Miracle", through which Havana contributes toward the recuperation of sight by tens of thousands of Latin Americans, will now include the nations of the Caribbean Community (Caricom). Castro made the disclosure in a speech marking National Rebellion Day in recognition of the attack on the Moncada Barracks, which preceded the Cuban revolution. He said the Cuban-Venezuelan "Operation Miracle" is a humanitarian triumph that would allow thousands of poor Venezuelans to have cataract and other eye operations in Cuba. Castro said that the first set of patients from the Caribbean have already been treated in Havana. (CMC News Agency, 27/7/05)

July 31: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that 100,000 Latin Americans will undergo eye surgery in Cuba this year, as part of the island's Milagro (Miracle) Medical Program, which he said will also include patients from the United States as well. During his weekly radio and TV appearance, President Chavez said the Cuban medical initiative is a free-of-charge eye surgery program for poor Latin American and Caribbean people. Chavez said patients from the US were also being included since the Bush administration continues to exclude a sizeable portion of the population from health care. The Venezuelan leader said the Milagro project is one of the initiatives of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), and is being jointly implemented by Venezuela and Cuba in order to offer assistance to those who most need it. (AIN, 1/8/05)

August 21: Cuba and Venezuela have sealed a commitment over the next 10 years to restore the sight of millions of Latin Americans who lack the economic resources for an operation, as part of the extension of the "Mission Miracle" program throughout the region. This was announced by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez during edition No. 231 of the popular television space "Aló Presidente," transmitted from the Sandino municipality in the extreme west of the island's Pinar del Río province. Christened the "Sandino Commitment", the program proposes to attend to 600,000 patients per year in the Cuban facilities involved in the mission and in Venezuelan health centers to be brought into the humanitarian project, including military hospitals. (Granma International, 21/8/05)

August 23: The government of Honduras has asked Cuba to bring home some of the more than 200 Cuban doctors who have been working in this country in recent years, saying the emergency that prompted their "importation" has passed, local media reported. Newspapers cited Foreign Minister Mario Fortin as saying that Honduras no longer needs so many Cuban doctors, though the country could use additional anesthesiologists and nurses. "We have already notified the government of Cuba that the circumstances in which the convention was adopted have changed," Fortin said. He referred to a pact that includes a scholarship plan for Hondurans to attend a medical school on the Communist-ruled island, from which 215 of them graduated last week and where another 215 are still pursuing their studies. The accord, signed in the wake of Hurricane Mitch's devastating passage over Central America in November 1998, also involved deployment of Cuban physicians to poor regions of Honduras, whose health-care system is inadequate. (AFP,EFE, 23/8/05)

August 31: Honduran President Ricardo Maduro announced that the 300 Cuban doctors currently working in this country will remain for one more year, although the agreement on health care cooperation between Tegucigalpa and Havana will be reviewed. "The Cuban doctors will remain. This is in response to the general opinion of the Honduran people, and that I myself share, that they are doing a good job," Maduro said. The president indicated that the decision was made by a commission comprised of, among others, the Medical School of Honduras. (AFP, 31/8/05)

September 4: Fidel Castro put on display some 1,500 doctors equipped with medical supplies in hopes of persuading the United States to allow them to treat victims of Hurricane Katrina. Castro, in a televised meeting with the doctors, said the United States had not responded to his offer to send medical workers and 26 tonnes of supplies to the devastated US Gulf Coast. The Cuban leader read out news stories describing a lack of medical attention for Katrina refugees and those still trapped in Louisiana and Mississippi a week after the storm hit. "These doctors could all already be there providing their services," Castro said. "Forty-eight hours have passed and we still haven't received any response to our offer (…) we will wait patiently as many days as are necessary," he said. (AP, 4/9/05)

September 6: Cuban Foreign Ministry spokesman Jose Luis Ponce said that Cuba has yet to receive a response to Fidel Castro's offer to send to the US more than 1,500 doctors to help victims of Hurricane Katrina . Ponce said 1,586 Cuban doctors are "ready to go." He spoke to press in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where Castro was attending an oil conference. (AP, 6/9/05)

September 13: The United States has still not responded to Cuba's offer of 1,600 doctors to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, Cuba said. The response "has yet to arrive, and may never come," said a front-page government statement in Granma, the ruling Communist Party daily. (AP, 13/9/05)

September 16: Venezuelans are flocking to Havana by the planeload for free eye operations under a medical program funded by their country that is helping Cuba pay for oil imports and keep its socialist economy afloat. More than 70,000 Venezuelans have been operated on for cataracts and other eye ailments this year and the goal is 150,000 by the end of 2005, a Cuban health official said. On Aug. 20, a record 1,648 eye operations at some 20 hospitals were performed in one day, the health official said. Hotels and educational campuses have been taken over to house Venezuelan patients who get free air travel to Cuba, lodging and food while they are in Havana, courtesy of the Venezuelan state. They are driven around in new buses from China, often escorted by police on motorcycles. The VIP treatment underscores the priority President Fidel Castro has given to a program that is paying for vital shipments of 90,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan oil and gasoline, which represents an energy bill that exceeds $1.5 billion a year at today's high prices. (Reuters, 16/9/05)

September 19: Nearly 80,000 Venezuelans have undergone eye operations at Cuban hospitals this year as part of the "Mission Miracle" program, Fidel Castro said. The Cuban leader mentioned the figure during an official ceremony marking the creation of a medical foreign legion comprising more than 1,500 physicians trained and equipped for overseas humanitarian missions. He said that since January, more than 83,600 Venezuelan and Caribbean nationals with vision problems have been treated in Cuba. The majority of the patients, 79,450, were from Venezuela, with the balance coming from various Caribbean countries. The volume of Venezuelan medical "tourists" is so great that Cuban authorities have designated particular hotels for the exclusive use of visitors from the Andean nation. In fact, some of those lodging facilities have been converted into "hotel-hospitals." (EFE, 20/9/05)

September 21: The United States snubbed Cuba's offer to send about 1,600 Cuban doctors to join relief efforts for the victims of Hurricane Katrina because enough American doctors have volunteered, a US official said. The offer of the Cuban government was not accepted because "there was not a match", State Department official Joseph Sullivan told reporters in Louisiana's state capital Baton Rouge. (AFP, 21/9/05)

October 11: After sending hundreds of doctors to disaster-battered Guatemala, Cuba has offered Pakistan at least 200 doctors to help victims of a killer earthquake which shook that Asian nation and may end up killing over 33,000. Fidel Castro sent a letter to his Pakistani counterpart Pervez Musharraf, in which he informs of Havana´s readiness to send physicians with medical provisions. The note underlines the medical team could be ready in 24 hours to travel by air. The Cuban head of State told Musharraf that the island would cover the costs of transportation and food. (Prensa Latina, 11/10/05)

October 21: Around 100 Cuban doctors, nurses and paramedics arrived in Pakistan, ready to work right away to bring relief to survivors of the earthquake that savaged northern areas of the country two weeks ago. A first batch made the 26-hour flight from Havana a week ago and the latest influx brought the total number of Cuban medical staff on the ground in Pakistan close to 200. "We are happy to be here to help our Pakistani brothers and sisters and we are ready to work despite the very long flight," Francisco Rivera, a nurse from Santa Clara, told the press at a military airbase in Rawalpindi, the garrison city next to Islamabad. Cuba's First Deputy Minister Rodrigo Parrilla said the medical teams could stay for at least 90 days, and added that Fidel Castro personally ordered the teams to be sent to Pakistan. The Cubans make up one of the largest foreign contingents of medical workers to have been rushed to Pakistan's aid. (Reuters, 21/10/050)

October 26: Teachers of surgical speciality departments at the University of the Republic of Uruguay opposed the sending of Uruguayan patients to Cuba to undergo eye surgeries. The doctors protested against the recruiting in public hospitals of patients with surgical diagnoses who would be sent in groups of 25 to 30 a week to the island. Three Cuban doctors have been visiting hospitals in southern Uruguay with that intention as part of a project between Havana and the Uruguayan government. The Uruguayan ophthalmologists propose to finance the surgeries with the savings from airfare to Cuba. (AFP, 27/10/05)

November 16: In a press conference, members of the Paraguayan Association of Ophthalmologists (SPO) released a document outlining their position with regard to Paraguayans going to Cuba to undergo eye surgery free of charge. The professionals rejected the Government's actions "in transferring to a foreign nation its responsibility to guarantee the citizens' access to eye care" and considered them a rather serious matter. (Europa Press, AP, 16/11/05)

November 17: The Cuban-Venezuelan solidarity campaign "Operation Milagro" established its first base outside of Cuba in the Bolivian Ophthalmologic Institute, now equipped with Cuban specialists and technology, in order to operate on poor patients. The Cuban solidarity initiative was praised by Fanny Arguedas, wife of President Eduardo Rodríguez; Alvaro Muñoz, minister of health; and Juan del Granado, the mayor of La Paz, in a ceremony at the institute. Luis Felipe Vázquez, the Cuban ambassador, emphasized that the center has the conditions to operate on poor patients from all over Bolivia who are suffering from blindness as a result of cataracts or other disorders, without them needing to travel to Cuba. He noted that the initiated program is within the framework of Operation Milagro, in virtue of which some 1,000 Bolivians have received operations for their sight on the island. (Granma International, 17/11/05)

November 27: The Cuban eye care team referred 95 persons for surgery in Cuba during a three-day outreach to Bartica, Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni), Guyana. The team arrived at the Bartica Regional Hospital and screened 130 persons, and 42 of them were referred for surgery in Cuba after being diagnosed with cataract and pterigium, the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported. A day after, the team screened 189 persons and 53 were required to undergo surgery in Cuba. The following day the team also attended to 130 persons, GINA stated. The team has already completed a series of screening exercises around the country, including Fort Wellington, Blairmont, Mahaicony, Leguan, Suddie and Wales. (Staebroek News, 27/11/05)

November 27: For the first time in nearly a generation, Cuba's moribund economy is showing signs of life because of a new program financed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to provide residents across Latin America and the Caribbean free eye surgery. Called Mision Milagro, or Miracle Mission, the campaign has provided more than 122,000 cataract and other eye operations this year to patients from Venezuela to Jamaica to Bolivia. It is part of a major shift in the Cuban economy away from traditional foreign investment and mainstream tourism to a web of favorable agreements with Venezuela, an oil-rich nation that now is Cuba's closest ally. Though neither country has released official numbers, economists and diplomats believe Cuba could be earning $1 billion a year from eye operations and other medical treatment provided to foreigners under Venezuelan-financed programs such as Mision Milagro. The revenue is used to cover the cost of receiving 98,000 barrels of discounted Venezuelan oil daily, essentially canceling what traditionally has been Cuba's largest import bill and its greatest drain on hard currency resources. "This is an excellent business for Cuba," said Pedro Monreal, an economist at the University of Havana. "This is like striking gold." While Monreal argues that the Venezuelan assistance gives Cuba its first opportunity in years to develop economically, others say hitching Cuba's economic wagon to Venezuela risks repeating the mistake Castro made by aligning himself with the Soviet bloc after he took power in 1959. (Chicago Tribune, 27/11/05)

November 30: President Martin Torrijos of Panama arrived in Cuba ahead of dozens of eye patients traveling for free operations through "Operation Miracle," a program Fidel Castro's government designed to help disadvantaged people throughout the region. The visit was the latest sign of warming relations between the two countries after a restoration of diplomatic ties following a rupture last year when the previous Panamanian president pardoned four Cuban exiles accused of trying to assassinate Castro. "I think it is my obligation [to visit] as a sign of my thanks for the opportunity being given to many humble Panamanians to recover their sight," Torrijos told reporters upon his arrival. Traveling with a delegation that included the Panamanian ministers of health and labor, Torrijos was greeted at the airport by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Vice President Carlos Lage. He was expected to meet with Castro at the Palace of the Revolution. (CNN, 30/11/05)

December 30: Fidel Castro and Latin America's latest leftist leader, Bolivian President-elect Evo Morales, announced plans to increase cooperation between the two countries after a day of talks in Havana. The two leaders signed a joint communique in which Cuba pledged to train 5,000 Bolivian doctors and provide eye treatment to 50,000 Bolivians each year. The agreement, which also included promises to develop cooperation in many other areas such as education and energy, was signed in the presence of 250 Bolivian medical students already enrolled in Cuba. "This is a meeting between two generations of fighters for dignity and independence," Morales, 46, said with Castro, 79, looking on. (Reuters, 30/12/05)