Holguín: Health workers response to the US attacks on medical cooperation
- Written by Lourdes Pichs Rodríguez
- Published in Health
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“Cuba and the world most count on almost half a million health workers to work on confronting and containing the new SARS CoV-2 coronavirus, just as we did in the fight against Ebola in Africa or cholera in Haiti and other countries in the face of natural disasters, " said to the local newspaper ¡ahora! Santiago Badía, Secretary General of the National Union of Health Workers.
Given the situation the world is experiencing today due to COVID-19 and the interventionist pronouncements of the United States embassy in Havana on Cuban medical cooperation, Badía said that the best and most timely response is the thousands of compatriots willing to fulfill their duty within the country and the thousands who have expressed their willingness to help other peoples.
“Until March 25, after the request of several countries, seven medical brigades have already left while others are getting ready. I just bid farewell to the brigade that left for Belize, with 58 members. Previously, others left for Jamaica, Venezuela, Suriname, Nicaragua, Granada and Italy, one of the countries with the highest morbidity and mortality of Covid-19, ” he added.
About the appeal of the US embassy in Havana to countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to reject Cuban medical cooperation, he pointed out that "the interventionist policy of the US government comes to light again by attacking one of our main conquests and essence of the Revolution”.
“We are accused of forcing our professionals to carry out missions outside borders; however, I am witness to several calls from doctors, nurses and health technicians who are expressing their willingness to undertake any task inside or outside the country, mainly at this moment,” he pointed out.
"The Cuban Universities of Medical promote essential values, such as ethics, sensitivity, humanism and internationalism, which are inherent to health professionals from the island," Badía noted.
