The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 69/No. 36           September 19, 2005,         SPECIAL ISSUE  
 
 
Cuba: 1,500 doctors stand ready to aid victims
Revolutionary gov’t offers example of international solidarity
 (front page)
 
Cuban president Fidel Castro made the following remarks September 2 on that country’s “Roundtable” television program. He reiterated the revolutionary government’s offer to immediately send 1,100 medical personnel and material to aid victims of hurricane Katrina in the United States. Two days later the Cuban government increased its offer, organizing a brigade of 1,586 physicians, ready for immediate mobilization.

As of September 7 this offer, first announced August 30, had not been accepted or publicly acknowledged by U.S. officials. The statement was distributed by the Cuban Mission to the United Nations. The translation is by the Militant.
 

*****

Our country is ready to send tonight, in the early hours of the morning, 100 clinicians and specialists in Comprehensive General Medicine, who at dawn tomorrow, Saturday, could be at the Houston International Airport, Texas, the closest [major airport] to the region struck by the tragedy, in order to be transported by air, river, or land to locations isolated from shelters, facilities, and neighborhoods of the city of New Orleans where people and families requiring emergency medical care or first aid may be found.

This Cuban personnel would be carrying backpacks with 24 kilograms of medicine known to be essential in such situations to save lives, as well as basic diagnostic kits. They would be prepared to work alone or in groups of two or more, depending on the circumstances, for as long as necessary.

Likewise, Cuba is ready to send via Houston, or any other airport that is specified, 500 additional specialists in Comprehensive General Medicine, with the same equipment, who could be at their destination point by noon or by the afternoon of tomorrow, Saturday, September 3.

A third group of 500 specialists in Comprehensive General Medicine could be arriving on the morning of Sunday, September 4. Thus, some 1,100 such doctors, with the resources described, which amount to 26.4 tons of medicine and diagnostic equipment, would be lending their services to the neediest people in the wake of the damage caused by hurricane Katrina.

This medical personnel has the necessary international experience and elementary knowledge of the English language that would allow them to treat the patients.

We stand ready awaiting the response of the U.S. authorities.
 
 
Related articles:
Cuba offers 1,500 doctors to aid victims of hurricane in U.S.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home