Vol. 75/No. 41 November 14, 2011
In the four months after the earthquake, which devastated Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, Balseiro was the director of the Cuban-staffed field hospital in the town of Leogane.
Cuba has had medical personnel in Haiti since 1998. At the time of the earthquake, more than 300 Cuban health workers there moved into action. The number in Haiti was rapidly increased to over 1,500. They were joined by more than 300 Cuban-trained doctors from other countries.
Cuba’s medical personnel responded to the cholera epidemic, which broke out in October 2010, treating about one-quarter of all cases in Haiti. Today there is a medical staff of 767 Cubans in the country.
“Our capital is as human beings and human values of solidarity,” Balseiro told an audience of 65 at the Haitian community center La Perle retrouvée. Cuba’s internationalist aid stands in stark contrast to the callous indifference of Washington and other wealthy capitalist governments. “There is a world crisis. We suffer as well as others. It is not a question of rich or poor but of the will to do something.”
Balseiro also spoke at the University of Quebec, Marianapolis College, La Maison d’Haiti, and the Office of the Haitian Community. The tour was organized by the Canadian Network on Cuba and the Table de Concertation Quebec-Cuba.
The medical team Balseiro was part of is called the Henry Reeve brigade. Reeve was an American who fought for Cuba’s independence at the end of the 19th century. At the time of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, Cuba offered to immediately send a volunteer medical contingent of 1,100 doctors with 26.4 tons of medicine and medical equipment, Balseiro explained.
Washington refused the offer. Afterwards, then Cuban President Fidel Castro proposed that the contingent become permanent and be named after Reeve. Since then the brigade has gone to a number of countries.
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