CIENFUEGOS, Cuba, March 24 (PL)—President Fidel Castro has called on the governments of the United States and Europe to imitate the example of Cuba, which is capable of maintaining more than 16,000 health professionals working in Third World nations.

During his speech yesterday in an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of this city’s provincial hospital, 250km southeast of Havana, Fidel noted that just from Cienfuegos province, one of the smallest on the island, nearly 600 of its doctors, dentists and technicians are part of those efforts.

"Let the U.S. and European governments try and find 500 doctors to carry out similar missions – they won’t find them, because they don’t have them; that human capital must be formed," he commented.

Referring to persons who slander this type of Cuban aid, especially that dedicated to Venezuela, he stated: "They are ashamed and protest as if it were a crime or a conspiracy to take care of millions of excluded Venezuelans.

"If (the doctors) are Cuban agents, why don’t they don’t send agents from the United States who are capable of living where the poor do, and practicing medicine in order to save so many lives among the marginalized people in those barrios," Fidel asked.

He commented that during Venezuala’s 40 years of oligarchic governments, between 1959 and 1999, some $300,000 million left the country, both legal and ill-gotten funds, including the state’s hard currency reserves.

According to the current purchasing power of U.S. dollars, the amount of capital flight toward the economic metropolises is the equivalent to one billion dollars. With such a sum of money, a social program could be financed right now in every Latin American country, Fidel emphasized.

The situation of the social neglect of hundreds of millions of Latin Americans is the work of a system that has imposed horrific conditions of life on those peoples, he stated.

During his speech, the Cuban president listed the health programs put into practice in Cuba over the last few years, and especially noted the program for top-quality treatment of heart attack victims, using preventative methods.

That health project implies some 20,000 arterial explorations being done per year through cutting-edge technology, as compared to the 6,000 to date by conventional means.

Another important program is that of the intensive therapy departments, which emerged as a result of the global threat of the SARS syndrome, and in just 10 months, that type of serves was extended to 118 Cuban municipalities.

Before the end of this year, Cuba’s 444 polyclinics will be able to attend to patients with emergency cardiac pathologies, which is the top cause of death in the country, he announced.

Soon, those same clinics will also possess diagnostic ultrasound equipment, and in December, the network of physical therapy and rehabilitation centers will be completed, which will attend to more than 300 health problems.