OAKLAND, Calif. — More than 100 people from across North America took part in an online webinar July 31 answering Washington’s lies about Cuba’s international health missions and to raise funds for the “From Our Hearts to Cuban Hearts” campaign to raise funds to send 150 pacemakers to Cuba. Sponsors of the online meeting included National Network on Cuba, Saving Lives Campaign, Global Health Partners, Canadian Network on Cuba, Table de concertation de solidarité Québec-Cuba, Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization and Code Pink.
“Health in Cuba is a human right,” said Dr. Jose Armando Arronte Villamarin, opening the program. “There are 75,000 doctors in Cuba today, a ratio of 7.4 doctors for every 1,000 people.”
The first Cuban medical brigade went to Algeria in 1963. Since then Cuba has sent thousands of medical missions, honoring requests for help from 165 countries and helped establish medical schools in countries in Africa, Latin America and the Mideast.
Arronte Villamarin described how Cuba founded the Latin American School of Medicine in 1998, training tens of thousands of doctors from around the world. Two U.S. doctors who attended the school spoke during the webinar — Dr. Abeeku Ricks from Georgia and Dr. Uriel Ramirez from Los Angeles.
Cuban medical volunteers were instrumental in halting the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014 and in treating people stricken with COVID-19 during the pandemic. Through Operation Miracle, the Cuban Revolution has organized 3 million ophthalmic surgeries to treat cataracts, glaucoma and pterygium across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Since the revolution in 1959, Washington has conducted a relentless economic and propaganda war against the Cuban people. Arronte Villamarin condemned the latest attack — by the Trump administration, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio — claiming Cuba is victimizing its internationalist doctors through “human trafficking” and “modern slavery.”
But Cuban medical professionals participate in international missions voluntarily. They have freedom of movement. They receive their full salaries, pensions and stipends, often higher than they would receive in Cuba.
Peggy Gilpin, a board member of Global Health Partners, described the progress being made in raising money for pacemakers. Cuba has hundreds who need them, and a three-year waiting list for the lifesaving devices. “The Cuban health system is stretched to the limits by the U.S. blockade,” she said. A small number of companies dominate global production of pacemakers, and U.S. government trade restrictions prevent them from selling to Cuba.
So far, 575 pacemakers have been donated to Cuba, all of which are in use. Global Health Partners is campaigning to raise $150,000 over the next three months to send 150 more.
More than $8,000 for the effort was raised through the webinar. A video of the webinar is available from US-Cuba Normalization Coalition Conference. Contributions can be made online at https://ghpartners.org/cuba2025, and more information is available from the Saving Lives Campaign.