Daily Archive

Well other than the largest presence on the ground since the disaster ocurred in Haiti, nowhere I guess (ghosts?).

“One major international news agency’s list of donor nations credited Cuba with sending over 30 doctors to Haiti, whereas the real figure stands at more than 350, including 280 young Haitian doctors who graduated from Cuba. The final figure accounts for a combined total of 930 health professionals in all Cuban medical teams making it the largest medical contingent on the ground.”

This is not just Haiti, Cuba has a history of being among the first responders to crisis situations worldwide.

“Cuban medical teams played a key role in the wake of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and provided the largest contingent of doctors after the 2005 Pakistan earthquake. They also stayed the longest among international medical teams treating the victims of the 2006 Indonesian earthquake.

In the Pakistan relief operation the US and Europe dispatched medical teams. Each had a base camp with most doctors deployed for a month. The Cubans, however, deployed seven major base camps, operated 32 field hospitals and stayed for six months.”

Cuba, a nation still in an economic stranglehold enforced the the US, still has the resources to send to other disaster stricken countries around the world.  Do they vie for international resources or media time like other NGO’s?  Rarely.  No, rather they are have been, on many occasions, the first ones on the ground and the last ones to leave stricken areas of the world.

How do they do it?  Cuba is a poor island nation, but yet they get it done.  There is not glitzy flavour of the day fundraising and the enormous overhead that goes along with such hoopla; they just get there and start helping people to the best of their limited ability.

Do we hear about the outstanding work that Cuban doctors are doing in our filtered and standardized media.  Not a peep of course.   Being on the official US enemy list makes you magically disappear from positive media coverage.

Cuba sets the gold standard on what effective crisis response should look like.  Imagine how much Cuba could achieve  if the West were not determined to strangle their nation economically.