{"id":2790,"date":"2020-09-24T11:16:28","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T11:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/?p=2790"},"modified":"2020-09-24T11:16:31","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T11:16:31","slug":"medical-workers-of-conviction-speaking-to-cuban-doctors-who-heal-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/medical-workers-of-conviction-speaking-to-cuban-doctors-who-heal-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical workers of conviction: Speaking to Cuban doctors who heal the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Vijay Prashad spoke with Cuban doctors about their experiences serving in medical brigades and their commitment to serving humanity<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cuban doctors in Barbados<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 2004, Dr. Jos\u00e9 Armando Arronte Villamar\u00edn was posted to head a Cuban medical brigade in Namibia. Cuban medical personnel first came to southwest Africa in 1975 alongside Cuban soldiers; the soldiers had arrived there to assist<\/a> the South West African People\u2019s Organization (SWAPO) in the fight for the liberation of Namibia from the apartheid South African military. Dr. Arronte Villamar\u00edn, a friendly man with a glint in his eye, tells me how much he has enjoyed his work, not only during his time in Namibia, which lasted till 2007, but also\u2014strikingly\u2014in the United States of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was surprised. I had no idea that Cuban medical personnel had served in the United States, which has\u2014since the Cuban Revolution of 1959\u2014tried to overthrow the government of Cuba. In 2005, Dr. Arronte Villamar\u00edn was in Havana for the annual meeting of the chiefs of Cuba\u2019s medical brigades. That was when Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans, destroying the city and putting the entire southern half of Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf Coast in serious peril. Cuba offered to send its medical teams to assist their neighbors to the north. But US President George W. Bush refused. Cuba\u2019s Fidel Castro encouraged the formation of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade. Dr. Arronte Villamar\u00edn\u2019s medical team in Namibia became part of this new brigade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Bush said not to come to the United States, then how did Dr. Arronte Villamar\u00edn find himself there? In 2017, due to the initiative of the US Congressional Black Caucus, members of the Henry Reeve brigade\u2014including Dr. Arronte Villamar\u00edn\u2014came to Chicago to study and treat high rates of infant mortality. The infant mortality rate<\/a> among African American mothers in the United States in 2018 was 11.7 per 1,000 live births, while it was 6 per 1,000 for white mothers; in Cuba, the infant mortality rate<\/a> in 2019 was 5.1 per 1,000 live births. Dr. Arronte Villamar\u00edn tells me he was shocked by what he saw. He and his colleagues tried to do the very best that they could, but they were only in Chicago for five months. It was just not enough time to make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost Totally Isolated<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The United States government has continued attacking Cuban medical internationalism right up to the current pandemic, making<\/a> wild allegations against the program that disparage the medical workers. Paul Hare, a former British ambassador to Cuba who teaches in the United States, told<\/a> Reuters recently that the US is \u201calmost totally isolated\u201d when it comes to its Cuban policy. Each year since 1992, the UN General Assembly votes to end the US-imposed embargo on the island. In 2019, 187 countries said<\/a> the embargo must end, while the US stood with two of its closest allies (Brazil and Israel); Ambassador Hare\u2019s phrase\u2014\u201calmost totally isolated\u201d\u2014is an understatement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Daymarelis Ortega Rodr\u00edguez, the chief of the Henry Reeve brigade in Barbados, told me that her work in the brigade gives her \u201cimmense pride.\u201d \u201cI enlisted to be part of this brigade by my own will,\u201d she said, \u201cnot as a slave or exploited person. I am a fighter for life, for peace, and for human welfare.\u201d Dr. Ortega Rodr\u00edguez, whose face lights up with a smile as she talks, is responding to one of the most bizarre accusations: that the Cuban government treats its doctors like \u201cslaves.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June 2019, for instance, US Senator Marco Rubio called<\/a> Cuban medical internationalism \u201cmodern-day slavery.\u201d Rubio, along with Senators Ted Cruz and Rick Scott, introduced<\/a> the Cut Profits to the Cuban Regime Act of 2020, which would target countries that take assistance from the Cuban doctors. The Health Minister of Barbados, Jeffrey Bostic, responded<\/a> sharply: \u201cBarbados is a sovereign country and we make decisions in the interest of the country just like other countries large and small. We have engaged the nurses from Cuba\u2026 and we are not going to buckle under the pressure of any other nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commitments to Health<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Ortega Rodr\u00edguez is sitting on a couch in Barbados, alongside Nurse Yandy P\u00e9rez, who is part of her brigade. They are sharing a phone, telling me about what they are doing in Barbados and what they had done beforehand. Both Dr. Ortega Rodr\u00edguez and Nurse P\u00e9rez are in the midst of the fight against COVID-19. Nurse P\u00e9rez had been in Vietnam, while Dr. Ortega Rodr\u00edguez had spent time in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, and in Antigua. Nurse P\u00e9rez says that he has not worked in Vietnam and in Barbados for any personal gain. \u201cWhy do you spend years outside Cuba?\u201d I asked them. \u201cWe do it out of conviction,\u201d said Nurse P\u00e9rez, \u201cout of solidarity. We do it from the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Jany Cabrera Paumier has been a physician since 2012 and an internist since 2016. She is talking to me from Belize, where she is on her first medical internationalist mission. Dr. Cabrera Paumier has a four-year-old daughter, who lives in Santiago de Cuba; her voice breaks as she says that it will be her daughter\u2019s birthday in a few days. \u201cI decided that I wanted to be part of this brigade and its honorable work for the world,\u201d Dr. Cabrera Paumier told me. \u201cBelieve me, my choice could not make me prouder to be Cuban.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the Henry Reeve brigade celebrates 15 years of work, although Cuban medical internationalism goes back to 1960. I have interacted with doctors like Dr. Arronte Villamar\u00edn and Dr. Cabrera Paumier over the years and have been overwhelmed by their commitment to health and love, to human possibility. But it is important to remember that they are also human beings, people with lives that are folded into their internationalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Cabrera Paumier\u2019s daughter is proud of her mother. So is Dr. Ortega Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s son, who plays the trombone in the Havana theater. So are Dr. Arronte Villamar\u00edn\u2019s children, a son who is a dental surgeon and a daughter who is in medical school; they follow in their father\u2019s footsteps. It is not easy to be away from their families, but each of these medical workers thinks that it is worthwhile. \u201cI came to Belize to help people to do the best for their own country,\u201d Dr. Cabrera Paumier told me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

source: Peoples Dispatch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vijay Prashad spoke with Cuban doctors about their experiences serving in medical brigades and their commitment to serving humanity In 2004, Dr. Jos\u00e9 Armando Arronte […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2791,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[43,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-opinions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5090,"url":"https:\/\/www.cubasupport.ie\/latest\/us-suffocates-cuba-for-unwavering-victorious-anti-imperialism-at-great-cost\/","url_meta":{"origin":2790,"position":0},"title":"US suffocates Cuba for unwavering, victorious anti-imperialism at great cost","author":"Editorial Team","date":"August 15, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Cuba\u2019s anti-imperial foreign policy helped end apartheid in South Africa and sustain liberation movements worldwide. 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