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IN FIVE MONTHS
Cuban doctors have attended to more
than one million Pakistanis
• Over the more than 31,000
patients who have completed rehabilitation
treatment, 85% are totally recovered
• Memorandum of understanding for the delivery to
Pakistan of 30 fully-equipped field hospitals and
training for Pakistani personnel in their use
BY
LILLIAM RIERA—Granma International staff writer—
IN a
period of five months, 1,300,442 Pakistanis, 48.5%
of them women, were attended to by the Cuban members
of the Henry Reeve International Contingent of
doctors specializing in disaster situations and
serious epidemics, who traveled to that nation to
help the victims of the October 5, 2005 earthquake,
it was announced in Abbottabad, during the signing
of a memorandum of understanding between the
governments of the two countries.
The
document, signed on March 21 by Lieutenant General
Syed Afzal Ahmad Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Military), the
general surgeon of the Pakistan Army, and Bruno
Rodríguez, first deputy minister of foreign affairs
of Cuba, covers the staggered hand over of the
island’s 30 field hospitals, as well as the training
of medical personnel from that South East Asian
country in their use.
According to a Granma daily report, the
Pakistani authorities are committed to maintaining
the donated Cuban installations in the same
localities where they have been set up in order to
continue offering free medical services and
medicines to the population. Meanwhile, the island
is to provide disposable materials and medicines for
each one of the hospitals on a monthly basis.
Rodríguez announced that approximately 460 Pakistani
specialists are already working in the field
hospitals to ensure a gradual and efficient
transition.
He
also noted that more than 8,000 patients have been
admitted, 700,000 physiotherapy treatments have been
organized and 31,600 people have completed their
rehabilitation, with 85% of them totally restored to
health.
TOTAL OF CUBAN COLLABORATORS ROSE TO 2,500-PLUS
Cuban medical aid personnel in Pakistan rose to a
total of 2,558 doctors, paramedics and support
personnel in 45 locations in the north of Pakistan,
such as Balakot, the so-called “lost city” and
Muzafarabad, two of the places most affected, where
they arrived with medicines, instruments and
surgical materials.
The
initial Cuban collaborators reached that country six
days after the disaster which, according to official
data, left 73,000 dead, 70,000 injured, some two
million children affected and 3.3 million people
homeless. Losses in the health and education
services are calculated at $118.5 million and $320.3
million, respectively.
More
than 500 of those doctors have now returned to the
island after having successfully fulfilled their
humane and altruistic labors of helping the quake
victims. A group of 14 Pakistani patients are also
in Havana for prosthesis treatment.
During the signing ceremony it was confirmed that
the Cuban medical personnel performed 12,406
operations, employed 234.5 tons of medicines and
disposable material as 275.7 tons of durable hi-tech
equipment.
Just
two months after the disaster, Indiana González
Mairena, chief of operations of UNICEF in Pakistan,
described the work of the Cubans as “effective and
useful.”
THEY
HAVE GAINED THOUSANDS OF FRIENDS
For
his part, Syed Afzal expressed his gratitude to
President Fidel Castro, the Cuban government and
people. He affirmed that they were paying tribute to
the medical brigade for the work undertaken and so
much generosity and confirmed that the Cubans have
gained thousands of friends.
During the ceremony, the Lieutenant General
presented special plaques to Rodríguez; Iván Mora,
the Cuban ambassador to Pakistan; Dr. Juan Carlos
Dupuy, general coordinator of the Henry Reeve
International Contingent; and diplomas to the
directors of the Cuban field hospitals and to heads
and professors of the Women’s Medical College, where
the island’s hospital in Abbottabad was established.
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