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Medical graduates:
1,593 from 26 countries
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Cuba lending assistance in 68 nations • Island has
71,000 doctors
BY MARIANELA MARTIN GONZALEZ—
Granma daily staff writer—
IF a system for training doctors
en masse like the one implemented by the Cubans is
not adopted, the future of the peoples is uncertain,
because between epidemics and social marginalization
the health of the poor of the planet is constantly
threatened.
 So
said Cuban Health Minister José Ramón Balaguer at
the central graduation event for students in Medical
Science yesterday afternoon at the Victoria de Girón
Institute of Basic and Pre-Clinical Science.
As of yesterday, Cuba has 2,314
new health professionals and 1,593 students from 26
countries also received their medical diplomas.
It was in this same venue,
inaugurated by Fidel 44 years ago, that the mass
training of doctors began after many of those
existing on the island emigrated to the United
States as a result of campaigns against the
Revolution, he recalled.
“Cuba now has 71,000 doctors,” he
noted. “Thanks to their responsibility and human
sensibility we have achieved a giant army that is
giving solidarity within and without the island, not
only raising the quality of life of their patients
but other values that are also promoters of health.”
“Our country is lending medical
assistance in 68 nations and has offered aid in a
hundred countries,” noted Balaguer, who recalled the
interest in establishing 11 faculties similar to
that of the Latin America School of Medicine (ELAM)
in various Third World countries, above all in
Africa.
Brazilian doctor Alexander Sales,
the best all-round ELAM graduate, affirmed that the
principles forged in the six years of study will be
applied in their countries of origin and wherever
they are needed.
Reading out the oath of the
graduates, Julio Arma, a general doctor, emphasized
maintaining the ethics of the profession in any part
of the world and serving the most unprotected
peoples of the planet.
This central event, dedicated to President Fidel
Castro’s 80th birthday and the 50th anniversary of
the Granma Landing, was attended by José
Ramón Machado Ventura, Pedro Ross Leal and
Concepción Campa, members of the Political Bureau.
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