I would not have wished to harshly criticize one of the companies dedicated to the production of medical equipment that does no obtain its profits by manufacturing weapons to kill, but by combating disease, suffering and death. For that reason, I have always treated all of them with respect and have enjoyed conversing with them on their scientific advances.
It is a different matter to think bitterly of countries that do not have those machines at their disposal, that a Third World nation can see its efforts being hindered by the stupid measure that a rich and powerful country is imposing on those who manufacture such equipment: the suspension of supplying spare parts for their use.
Between Venezuela and Cuba, Cuban cardiology specialists have available 28 Philips Ecocardiographs, without which an accurate and totally secure diagnosis is impossible. Each non-functioning machine translates into 500 patients per month who are not provided with that vital service.
In our country cardiac problems constitute the primary cause of death; it is more or less the same situation in Venezuela. Defibrillators are the par excellence instrument for pulling people out of cardiac arrest, a condition that could kill them if they do not receive urgent assistance. Of the 3,552 machines acquired from Philips, 2,000 were of that type, utilized in Cuban polyclinics and in the Venezuelan Barrio Adentro Diagnostic centers.
The 12 distinct types of Philips machines, acquired at a cost of $72.76 million, were all essential to high-quality services in Cuba and within the Venezuelan Barrio Adentro 1 and 2 programs, serviced by Cuban doctors and specialists. They were acquired and paid for by our country, as was agreed.
Machines from Siemens – with the exception of some sent to Bolivia – were providing services in Cuba and in the two Venezuelan programs. The value of the equipment acquired from that company totaled $85.43 million. In addition to the two companies mentioned, other European and Japanese ones supplied important additional machinery for the 27 Advanced Technology Diagnostic Centers of Barrio Adentro 2.
Philips is not questioning the date provided. The total suspension of supplies of spare parts came at the end of 2006; thus close to three years have passed from then up until now.
The company acknowledges that the exigencies of the government of the United States prompted the paralyzation of supplies up until its recent payment of a 100,000-euro fine, a derisory sum in comparison to the $72 million paid to that company for equipment. We had understood that there was no violation at all of the regulations imposed on the world by the empire. This concerns medical equipment, directed at saving lives; not weapons of war.
In January 2007 the Bush government appointed John Negroponte – the people’s executioner in Nicaragua during the dirty war against that country initiated in 1981 from the yanki Palmerola Base in Honduras – as assistant secretary of state. He had a murky history in the wars of aggression against Vietnam and Iraq. He was the first director of the powerful National Intelligence Agency. He accompanied the president of the United States in the White House conference in mid-2007, where there was so much talk on education and health. Both of them were aware that our specialists were providing medical services using Philips’ equipment in Cuba and Venezuela. They had put pressure on the Dutch company and managed to prevent it from supplying parts for those machines.
The social programs in Venezuela emerged as a fruit of the Bolivarian Revolution. I do not need to praise the close historical links between the two peoples and the ties of sisterhood that unite them.
I have already explained the decision taken by President Hugo Chávez that gave rise to our cooperation programs. That decision likewise gave rise, in early 2007, to the idea of adding the Barrio Adentro 3 program to those already existing, Barrio Adentro 1 and Barrio Adentro 2. Within the new program the cost of the equipment would be covered by Venezuela and would be handled by Venezuelan doctors.
Knowing of our experience in negotiations with medical equipment manufacturing companies, and the excellent prices for those supplies that we obtained given the volume of the operation, Chávez asked our country to acquire machines, instruments and medical supplies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The objective of the investment was to incorporate a significant number of hospital centers into the services that were being provided to the Venezuelan people in Barrio Adentro 1 and 2. To this was added the training program, in Cuba, for thousands of young Venezuelans as doctors capable of providing services anywhere, within and outside of the country. The graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine are heartening evidence of its spirit of sacrifice. We also contributed to the training of more than 20,000 students of medicine in Venezuela itself.
Our personnel entered into contact once again with the best suppliers of medical equipment, components and furniture, with the exception – logically – of the U.S. companies, which are totally forbidden from supplying Cuba with anything.
Although that country’s medical equipment is of high quality, its price is often abusively high. There are specialized companies on the international market whose machinery is perceived as the finest in the world. It is perfectly possible to do without U.S. equipment, if one wishes to avoid the risks of a criminal blockade like the one that has been applied to Cuba for 50 years. In the hospitals of Japan, a country whose population has the highest averages of life expectancy, the overwhelming majority of the machinery is Japanese; the rest is imported from Europe or the United States.
In the most industrialized European countries, where health rates are also higher than those of the United States, barely 30% of the equipment comes from Japan or the United States. For preference they use European machines. In both Japan and Europe the quality standards are much more demanding than in the United States.
I am pleased to observe that the line followed by the Cuban company specialized in the purchase of medical equipment was rigorously adjusted to proven principles in the previous purchases.
More than 50 known companies took part. I shall only note those that competed in terms of quality and price. The major volume agreed corresponded to the German Siemens company, to a total of $73.91 million; Drager, $37.277 million; Toshiba, $36.123 million; Nihon Kohden: $30.516 million. The Olympus, Karl Storz, Aloka, Carl Zeiss, Pressure and other companies well known to our specialists signed contracts; all of them reflect the revolutionary advance of medical technology in the last 20 years.
Within the standards of quality and price, the acquisition of equipment to a value of $63.65 million would have corresponded to the Dutch company Philips, which was considered and included within the principal companies. But that stage coincided with the suspension of supplies of parts for the equipment manufactured by that company located in Cuba and Venezuela; there was no alternative but to suspend negotiations on the contract.
Not all of the equipment of the agreed total has been received in Venezuela, but a volume of equipment, instruments and components to the value of $271 million is in place there. This implied a special effort on the part of Venezuelans and Cubans in terms of the full development of the important Barrio Adentro 3 program, which complements and articulates one of the most important and humane of the Bolivarian Revolution’s social programs. Both countries are aware of that obligation.
On the other hand, we have proposed making the necessary effort to take Barrio 1 and 2 to levels never previously achieved, by incorporating more than 2,500 advanced medical students being trained in Cuba so that, together with the comprehensive general medical specialists who are giving them classes, they become part of Barrio Adentro.
Optimum attention to patients was always the raison d’être of the doctors offices, the diagnostic centers and the other services in which Cuba is participating. The response of the Cuban cooperative health workers to my earlier Reflection [September 6, 2009] has been excellent. They are affirming, with right on their side, that imperialism will not win the battle against Barrio Adentro.
In the production and trade of weapons directed to warfare and destruction, nobody is currently competing with the United States. Two-thirds of the commercial arms world is in its hands; that is the fruit of the Industrial Military Complex. Today that imperial power not only consumes 25% of fossil fuels with less than 5% of the world population; it is contaminating the atmosphere, destroying the environment, threatening the world with its weapons of mass destruction, and it is the largest producer and marketer of weapons. However, it is not capable of guaranteeing the health of almost 25% of its population.
We shall not close the way to any company that wishes to produce and trade medical technology. We would accept with pleasure any rectification. Humanity has very serious problems to confront. Hopefully no disaster for our species will occur and many of us can have a clear conscience, having made the maximum effort to avoid it.