‘That’s how we’d
like the world to be!’
BY ALBERTO D. PÉREZ—Special
for Granma International—
/ PHOTOS: Dr. Trueta Foundation and Alberto PEREZ
TALL and lean, with gray hairs
already whitening his temples, before me I have,
once again, Doctor Carles Furriols i Solá, a Catalan,
as he likes to be called.
He was born 48 years ago in Vic, in
the province of Barcelona, one of four provinces
under Catalonian autonomy. Carles graduated in
medicine in 1985 and decided that medicine is not
something to profit from but something to use to
help others.
On October 23, 1993, together with
eight physicians and other diverse professionals, he
helped to create a not-for-profit humanitarian
organization to provide assistance where it was
needed. Those efforts led to the founding of the Dr.
Trueta Foundation, named after the famous Catalan
doctor, Josep Trueta, an orthopedics and trauma
specialist who, during the Spanish civil war,
invented a medical procedure to minimize infections
from shrapnel wounds caused by the pro-Franco aerial
bombing of Barcelona and other cities in Catalonia.
The Trueta foundation is thus a genuine expression
of profound humanist Catalan sentiments.
The Trueta foundation receives
donations in cash, equipment, products and medicines
from the most diverse sources that they then ship to
countries in need of these supplies, all of them
developing countries. In its central headquarters in
Vic, the foundation also provides work to people
with varying disabilities, who process, pack and
mail medicines and other medical supplies to Third
World destinations. This helps to increase the
income of the disabled and provides them with the
opportunity to contribute something to Catalonia and
to the world. (
www.dr-trueta.org)
As President of the Trueta
Foundation, Carles Furriols includes Cuba as one of
the foundation’s aid recipients. Other nations
include Mauritania, Senegal, the Congo in Africa;
Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Argentina in Latin America;
and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in
Asia. A total of 18 countries receive aid from the
Trueta foundation. The interview follows:
Why Cuba?
Because of the nature of the people
and also because of the progress that the Revolution
has brought to them, specifically in the areas of
technological advance, intellectual endeavors and
human solidarity.
How would you describe Trueta’s
support for Cuba?
The Trueta foundation helps to
provide a response to specific medical needs within
the most vulnerable sectors of Cuban society:
children with cerebral palsy, young people with
visual or hearing disabilities and the mentally ill.
We also try to support the Cuban medical system with
equipment for the optical and pharmacy areas. We
send medicine and disposable material to teaching
hospitals in the country’s eastern provinces, except
for Las Tunas. Since 1997, we have worked in Old
Havana and in Holguín province. Granma and
Guantánamo provinces are next in line and this year
we are going to begin helping the medical system in
Santiago de Cuba. Our plan is to include Las Tunas
province in 2005 and by then we will have covered
most of the eastern part of Cuba.
How does the Trueta Foundation
operate?
We adhere strictly to the needs
identified by the Cuban government and its Ministry
of Public Health and we are now working closely with
the provincial authorities and municipal entities.
Of utmost importance is our
association with the United Nations Organization in
Cuba, specifically its Development Program, the UNDP.
This institution supports Cuba in many ways, one of
which is through a decentralized local human
development office.
The local branch of that program (HDLP/Cuba)
is a vital resource that enables us to connect with
Cuban realities and to take the necessary steps to
satisfy specific needs identified from the base.
As you can imagine, it is precisely
within this base, where the needs and shortages are
perfectly well known, that we concentrate our work,
with the country’s knowledge and consent.
I want to highlight that the Dr.
Trueta Foundation is very satisfied with the support
that it receives from HDLP/Cuba and the national
authorities, which helps us to achieve the
foundation’s goals, as well the support we receive
at the provincial and local level. The HDLP/CUBA is
an indispensable resource for smooth relations
between our base in Cuba and the Trueta Foundation.
How have things been going in 2004?
Over the course of the year – and we
are already in the last quarter- we have sent Cuba
27 metric tons of medicine, including 2.3 million
different medications, that have been administered
to patients in need. They include medicine, medical
and surgical instruments, disposable material,
spectacles for children in special schools, hearing
aids for the deaf, wheelchairs, bed linen and
diapers for incontinent patients, and many other
items. Another shipment is scheduled for 2004.
This year, in conjunction with
researchers at the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
Hospital in Bayamo, Granma, we have placed special
emphasis on the early detection of breast and lung
cancer. We are supplying some basic materials to
support ongoing oncological studies that include the
whole population of Granma and which, as you can
imagine, are of life and death importance.
Also in 2004 we began to help the
national health system and its’ specialized
treatment of children in the eastern region who
suffer from congenital cardiac disorders.
One important addition is our
solidarity work, which includes shipping sewing
machines and material for occupational therapy
workshops. These workshops are designed to help
rehabilitate the mentally ill and the disabled, and
will provide them with the means to become
productive members of society as well as increasing
their self-esteem.
This weekly has closely followed the
solitary work of the Dr. Trueta Foundation in Cuba.
What message doe you have for its readers?
Anyone who reads this weekly is
interested in following the situation in Cuba. I can
tell them that the Trueta Foundation supports Cuba
because it is a country that has earned our
assistance because of its obvious commitment to the
welfare of its people.
We have the utmost respect and
consideration for the Cuban authorities, who oversee
the shipments and donations that the Trueta
Foundation sends to the necessary sectors, according
to a prior agreement.
Something else that makes us
particularly happy is the equal access that people
enjoy. This includes an equal right to receive the
highest quality medical care.
We are encouraged by these ideals
and in return we support Cuba’s medical system and
provide treatment for the most venerable and sick.
Likewise, at the Trueta Foundation, we appreciate
that solidarity lies with other people.
To the readers of Granma
International, I invite them to broaden their
knowledge of Cuba, a country where solidarity begins
at home. Moreover, a country whose doctors provide
selfless medical assistance, hundreds of miles away,
to thousands of human beings in almost 65 nations of
the planet. At the Trueta Foundation, I say to them:
‘That’s how we’d like the world to be!"
