“We must not forget the humanity of others”

Jessica García

Original written in Spanish

The Right to Health: Family Doctors

During my visit to Cuba, we not only visited the artists we mentioned in previous articles, but we also met with those who have been a Cuba reference in the world: Cuban doctors. 

The first visit was to a neighborhood health center in Marianao, one of the municipalities that make up the Cuban capital. This is one of hundreds of health centers distributed throughout the country that have become a source of great pride for the Cuban people. From there, 1,700 patients are treated within its radius of influence. A doctor and a nurse live permanently on the second and third floors of the health center. They are responsible for the primary care of these families, as they inform us. 

Visit to the health center in Marianao

The support is constant, with the professionals making home visits in the neighborhood almost every day, in addition to providing care in the clinic. They have a prevention program that involves conducting an annual survey of the health conditions of the families served by each health center, which is used to define the monitoring needs throughout the year. 

International Solidarity: Medical Missions

The professionals who work in the health centers are the same ones who participate in different medical missions around the world, which the Trump administration is now trying to boycott, preventing them from doing their work outside of Cuba.  

"Money does not give you any position of love for human beings. The most important thing about being a doctor is to see the patient as a human being, not a commodity.” 

When asked about the salaries of Cuban doctors who participate in these missions, a doctor who participated in some of them in Africa and Asia responds: “Money does not give you any position of love for human beings. The most important thing about being a doctor is to see the patient as a human being, not a commodity.” 

Visiting these health centers and talking to these professionals, we understand the pride that the Cuban people express about their health system and why the US government is trying to destroy it. Only extensive professional and political training can guarantee the great commitment of these doctors to their patients, not only in Cuba, but around the world. Only this extensive training can continue to uphold, in the face of decades of an inhumane blockade, that health is a human right and not a service available only to those who can afford it.

The right to health and education: ELAM

This defense of the human right to health goes hand in hand with the human right to education. This is how we understand the existence of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Cuba.

ELAM welcomes students from all over the world, including the United States. While the US has imposed an inhumane blockade on Cuba for decades, causing devastating effects on the daily lives of the Cuban people, the School of Medicine offers scholarships to low-income US citizens who want to study in Cuba and are willing to return to their country and serve their communities in the field of health. 

Meeting with an ELAM student and a Cuban doctor

During the delegation's visit, we had the great privilege of meeting not only doctors who have participated in various medical missions in Africa and Asia, but also a US student about to graduate from ELAM. Treating their patients as human beings and taking on the task of assisting their community with great commitment and conviction is the basis of the training of ELAM medical students. Hearing her testimony confirms the importance of these practices in international solidarity, which translate into the possibility of exercising a right that she could not exercise in her own country due to economic restrictions inherent in a system that promotes profits rather than the care of its own people.

Solidarity as a principle

While one of the greatest impacts of the blockade is on the health of Cuban people, which mainly means a lack of medicines and medical supplies, Cuba continues to train doctors to serve their communities. While the U.S. attempts to increasingly restrict access to healthcare, not only in Cuba but also in other countries in the region that receive Cuban medical missions, ELAM welcomes students from around the world so they can exercise their right to education and become doctors. While on one side there are advances in the denial of rights, on the other side there are attempts to expand the scope of those rights in the midst of an inhumane blockade.