The 73 included 20 youths who had studied five years at the medical school in the city of Bata, in the country’s continental region, and spent their final year studying and doing practical training in Cuba at hospitals in the western province of Pinar del Río. The other 53, after studying five years in Cuba, completed their medical program working alongside Cuban doctors in clinics and hospitals in Equatorial Guinea.

At the ceremony one of the students, Beltrán Ekua Pasialo, speaking on behalf of the graduating class, thanked the Cuban teachers who trained them. He said the duty of the newly graduated doctors was to promote the health and welfare “not only of the sons and daughters of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, but of all of humanity,” citing Cuban independence fighter José Martí’s words. “Our homeland is humanity.”

Some 600 people attended the graduation, including students, family members, and top government officials of Equatorial Guinea headed by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Other speakers included Health Minister Justino Obama Nve, university rector Carlos Nsé Nsuga, Cuban vice minister of health Roberto González Martín, and Cuba’s ambassador to Equatorial Guinea, Víctor Dreke. Also part of the Cuban delegation attending the ceremony was Dr. Alexis Díaz Rodríguez, dean of the Ernesto Che Guevara school of medicine in Pinar del Río, where the Guinean youth studied. Díaz himself was the first dean of the Bata medical school.

Present for the day’s celebration were many of the 144 members of Cuba’s volunteer medical contingent in Equatorial Guinea, headed by Dr. Leonardo Ramírez. The doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel work alongside Guineans in each of the country’s seven provinces and 18 districts, from the hospitals in Malabo and Bata, the two largest cities, to communities in remote rural areas. They play a vital role in helping confront the country’s health problems, such as malaria, typhoid fever, intestinal parasites, river blindness, and outbreaks of cholera.

In an interview with the Militant in October 2005, Ramírez explained, “We don’t just offer our medical services.” Cuba’s “goal is to strengthen Equatorial Guinea’s own health-care service, run by Guineans and for them. We collaborate in their training. This is a principle behind all our medical missions in countries around the world.”

Some 1,200 Cuban doctors were working in countries throughout Africa at the end of 2004. Cuba currently has about 20,000 doctors serving in 68 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Ninety-five Guinean students are currently being trained by Cuban teachers at the medical school in Bata, and a larger number are studying in Cuba.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home