Cuban medical personnel treated over 450,000 Jamaicans last year

Members of Cuba’s Medical Brigade treated over 450,000 Jamaicans in 2020, according to the team’s national coordinator, Dr Jose Armando Arronte Villamarin.

It was the first time since Jamaica and Cuba established a National Health Cooperation programme in public health in 1976 that the Cuban medical workers were seeing so many Jamaicans who needed medical attention in a one-year period.

When the programme started 45 years ago, it had 14 doctors, all assigned to Savanna-la-Mar Hospital in Westmoreland. Now, that number has grown almost 11 times in terms of doctors, and has more in other areas of health care.

Dr Armando, as he is known widely in Jamaican medical circles, who, along with his wife of more than two decades, Dr Libietys Avila Gutierrez serve the current brigade, expressed satisfaction that the work the Cubans have been doing will continue to redound to the benefit of Jamaicans, and improve their health, in collaboration with local medical personnel.

“There are 492 Cuban professionals working in Jamaica. We are working in the four regions and 14 parishes. There are 152 medical doctors, 295 registered nurses, 25 technologists, like hydro therapists, physiotherapists, and others; 17 biomedical engineers, and the others are coordinators of the eye care programme and the two people we have in the office of the Cuban Medical Brigade,” Dr Armando, who has 31 years’ experience in medicine, said in an interview with the Jamaica Observerlast Thursday.

“As the national coordinator of the Cuban Medical Brigade, I have to visit all of them to know how they live, where they are working, how they are doing on the job, and things like that.

“Last year, the Cuban Medical Brigade saw 455,841 patients. Of that number we saved the lives of 8,304 patients who reached places where Cuban professionals are working, and came in danger of losing their lives in emergency situations, which could have resulted in death, had we not intervened.

“Also in 2020, it was not possible to do many surgeries due to COVID-19, but we did more than 4,300 surgeries anyway. This tells us that the Jamaican people need our support, our attention,” he said.

As national coordinator, Dr Armando is not required to be at health facilities conducting procedures, but his wife does. Now operating from Windward Medical Centre and Pharmacy in east Kingston, Dr Avila Gutierrez is deeply involved in the testing of individuals for COVID-19, and encouraging Jamaicans to take precautionary measures against the pandemic that has changed life across the globe.

But with Jamaica experiencing more deaths than Cuba, a country four times more populous, are Jamaicans taking COVID-19 seriously?

“I’m not sure about some patients because sometimes you are not sure that they are doing what we are asking them to do, like wearing masks, washing hands and keeping social distance,” Dr Avila Gutierrez said.

“I am doing swabbing almost every single day for tests. This afternoon we have 18 patients scheduled for testing at Windward Road, and we are doing community intervention in different places like Constant Spring, Stony Hill, and the airport. So we are testing the population and we give health education and advice to the people every day.

“We are working on four vaccines in Cuba and trials are being done on all of them now,” she continued. “Before July, all of our population will get the vaccines, and we are producing 100 million doses to share with our friends — the Caribbean people, Africans and South Americans — and the cost will be lower than the rest. I believe in the vaccines, because we have produced a lot of vaccines and we have the experience,” she said.

“That’s the principle of the Cuban people,” Dr Armando joined in … “to share what we have.”

As for support from the Jamaica Government, Dr Armando readily admitted that the Ministry of Health and Wellness has been giving unlimited support to the Cuban effort. His wife, too, said she felt welcomed, a part of the overall team, and does not, for a moment, feel like she is a mere foreigner.

“We get full support from the Government,” Dr Armando insisted. “I have an office at the RKA Building (in New Kingston), at the international cooperation department. It’s very close to the PS’s (permanent secretary’s) office, and all the time I request any appointment or when the ambassador wants to discuss any matter with the PS or the minister, they give us a positive answer. They provide a Government vehicle for the national coordinator to visit Cuban workers, and facilitate my work, which got more difficult when 295 professionals came to Jamaica in 2020. If we have problems, we discuss them with the authorities, so the relationship is great.”

Praising Cuba’s health care system, Dr Armando expressed pride that the Spanish-speaking nation ended 2020 with an infant mortality rate of 4.9 per 100,000, and a life expectancy of 78.45 years for men, and even higher for women.

“Men are lazy, that’s why they die quicker than us,” Dr Avila Gutierrez joked.

“We also have an immunisation programme that covers 98 per cent of the population,” Dr Armando uttered on his return to seriousness after his wife’s quip. “I think Jamaica is working to get there too, as part of its Vision 2030 programme.”

“We have to increase health education to persons to ensure they know what to do, where to go and we are working on it,” suggested 25-year medical veteran Dr Avila Gutierrez. “In Jamaica, there are lots of patients who turn up at health centres and hospitals for treatment. We have extended some clinic hours from 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm, like Comprehensive Health Centre, Olympic Gardens, Stony Hill, Duhaney Park and Glen Vincent, and some are open on Saturdays too. So we are making some progress.”

The couple worked in Africa years ago — he even being named coordinator of the medical brigade to Namibia in 2004, and in early 2018 served as part of the partnership between the University of Illinois and the Cuban Government, as arranged by President Barack Obama.