HEALTH-HONDURAS: Doctors Criticise Cuban Medical Brigades

By Thelma Mejía Reprint | | Print |

Thelma Mejia

TEGUCIGALPA, Feb 18 1999 (IPS) - Criticism by local doctors of Cuban colleagues providing emergency assistance in Honduras in the wake of hurricane Mitch has jeopardised Havana’s offer of 400 medical school scholarships, the Honduran government warned.

Honduran Foreign Minister Roberto Flores Bermudez said the “unfounded” criticism formulated by the Medical Association “puts at risk the offer by Cuba, where the medical profession enjoys high prestige, of 400 scholarships for poor students.”

Bermudez said he had received “indications” that Havana was about to suspend the scholarships, and that he had interceded with Health Ministry authorities to convince “the Medical Association to retract its unjust demands.”

The minister said the presence of Cuban medical doctors in Honduras was the result of negotiations between his predecessor, Fernando Martinez, and Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina, who did not hesitate in sending humanitarian aid to remote areas devastated by the storm that swept Central America in late October.

Five brigades of Cuban doctors have been sent to the most remote areas of Honduras, where they are busy fighting respiratory diseases and infections, performing minor surgical operations and attending the needs of indigenous people.

After other areas requested visits by the Cuban medical teams, the foreign ministries of Honduras and Cuba agreed that the brigades would remain in the country for a year, if necessary.

The Cuban doctors are attending indigenous and other inhabitants of the country’s poorest regions. But when their presence is discovered in a certain area, small caravans of affluent Hondurans arrive to get check-ups or free operations.

The Medical Association of Honduras urged that the Cuban doctors be sent home, arguing that they were exercising their profession “illegally” and violating the Association’s statutes.

It also argued that the 400 scholarships offered by Havana should not be granted to low-income students just entering university, but to medical school graduates.

Felicito Montalvan, president of the Medical Association, said the scholarships would be “more cost-effective if they are given to professionals who are already formed, rather than people who are just starting their medical studies,” because “the country needs specialists and not practioners of general medicine.”

Montalvan said the Association was not opposed to the presence of the Cuban doctors. But “we believe that the profession should be exercised in accordance with the standards of the Medical Association. We understand that many of the Cubans are interns rather than doctors.”

Professor Mario Ernesto Rivera at the Medical Faculty of the public National Autonomous University of Honduras called the Association’s arguments “absurd, ridiculous, petty and superficial, because the work of our Cuban colleagues is excellent.

“They are giving us a hand in emergency situations. We should leave our professional jealousy aside and be more fair and educated,” said Rivera. “We will never be able to thank Cuba enough for the support by its medical brigades at a time when we are prostrate before the damages caused by Mitch.”

According to Rivera, who has a popular radio programme on medical issues which is broadcast nationwide, “the Cuban doctors go to remote zones where we don’t like to go, because we have lost the spirit.”

Health Minister Plutarco Castellanos said he and Flores Bermudez would analyse how to retain the 400 scholarships for poor students. He also praised the work of the Cuban brigades.

“They have helped us prevent outbreaks of illnesses that would have been unmanageable for us,” he stressed.

Cuba was one of the first countries to express its solidarity, through concrete actions, with the tragedy caused by hurricane Mitch, which killed at least 10,000 people in Central America, mainly in Honduras and Nicaragua.

Mitch, considered the worst Atlantic storm in 200 years, damaged 60 percent of infrastructure in Honduras, caused four billion dollars in losses, according to government estimates, left hundreds of thousands homeless and cut off communications to vast areas of the national territory.

Diplomatic relations between Honduras and Cuba were cut off three decades ago. But the reciprocal opening of interest sections renewed their ties and fomented cooperation.