Guyana extends gratitude to Cuba for health sector support

The Guyana government last Saturday honoured the Cuban medical brigade for its service to the country’s health sector and the benefits that would have accrued since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Guyana four decades ago, painting a different picture to the one in a Kaieteur News report about the availability of Cuban medical staff.
Cuban doctors, resident at the diagnostic and treatment centres at Suddie, Leonora, Mahaicony and Diamond and those from the Ophthalmology Centre at Port Mourant, gathered in the compound of the Health Ministry for a reception hosted specially for them on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Cuban medical brigade.
So significant is the anniversary that Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran, who presented a plaque to Cuban Ambassador to Guyana Raul Gortázar Marrero, is contemplating having a day designated to the Cuban medical brigade.
Prior to an agreement between former President Bharrat Jagdeo and then Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2006 that expanded the programme of cooperation between Guyana and Cuba in the medical field, a Cuban medical brigade of 40 to 60 offered expertise including at the institutional level.
Subsequent to the 2006 agreement, Cuba expanded the brigade with 20 additional doctors, some of whom were dispatched to areas like Rosignol in Region Five and Kamarang, Region Seven, where there had been a need for resident doctors.
With technical support from Cuban engineers and builders, the four diagnostic and treatment centres and an ophthalmology centre were built and Cuban specialists assigned to them until Guyanese pursuing scholarship studies in medicine returned from Cuba to take over.
The specialists who arrived to manage the centres at that time totalled about 200, comprising doctors, nurses, technicians and health administrators.
Guyana at that time had few doctors, most of whom were graduate level doctors and depended heavily on foreign countries, including Cuba, Minister Ramsaran said.
“We recognise that contribution and we want to applaud the Cuban government for giving us that opportunity,” Minister Ramsaran said while reporting that the ophthalmology hospital at Port Mourant has seen a significant scaling down of cataract cases to near elimination.
“Cataract is a disease difficult to find in Guyana and we are going to eliminate cataract with a new initiative by the Cuban team based in Port Mourant. We will be visiting homes in villages to find people with cataract,” Minister Ramsaran said.
Over the years the Cuban medical specialists have been in Guyana and laboratory, x- ray anesthesiology, nursing, biomedical, physiotherapy and other allied services have been augmented.
The National Assembly on January 3 unanimously adopted a motion in recognition of 40 years of friendly, bilateral relations between Guyana and Cuba that called on the U. S. to remove its embargo.
The embargo which Ambassador Marrero had described as a strategy to isolate Cuba from countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and the rest of the world, was “used as a stepping stone to climb higher,” according to Minister within the Finance Ministry Juan Edghill, who hailed Cuba for being recognised in every part of the world.