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Cuba
renovates its health system with state of the art
technology
• Spanish
entrepreneur praises the island for acquiring this
equipment despite economic restrictions
BY
LILLIAM RIERA
—Granma
International Staff Writer—
EFFORTS
by the Cuban government to renovate and improve
public health will boost the quality of medical care
for the population, said Ignacio El Sayed Quintero
to Granma International. Quintero is the
legal representative for the Spanish firm Euro Tade
Ibérica and attended the recently concluded 11th
International Medical Technology Health for All Fair
in Havana.
El
Sayed recognized the "sacrifice" of such a
project in terms of its cost to the country, given
both "economic restrictions" and the
"prices" of the latest international
medical equipment.
"If
only greater investment could be undertaken,"
he said, lauding the "Cuban state’s firm
sense of purpose and the concrete steps it has taken
to incorporate state of the art technology in the
health sector."
Euro
Tade Ibérica attended the Health For All Fair for
the second time, though the company's contacts on
the island go back some four years.
The
Spanish enterprise, with offices in Havana’s Wajay
duty-free zone, represents Brazilian companies
Takaoka and Fanem (Latin American leaders in
developments in anesthetics and pulmonary
ventilation equipment and incubators); Eurosilicone
Corporation, from France, (third internationally in
silicone mammary implants); and Alsa, an Italian
firm involved in the development of electro-surgical
units.
The
Spanish representative pointed out that Cuba has
been buying anesthetics equipment from his firm
since 2001, revealing that "around 80 have
already been purchased, at a world price that
fluctuates between $10 and $30 million USD.
The
new technology replaces outdated equipment,
"suggesting a complete change in the way
anesthesiology is understood and performed in today’s
world." Moreover, it is "helping to bring
about greater efficiency in surgical
procedures."
He
said that pulmonary ventilators used for intensive
therapy cases, valued at $10,000-$20,000 USD,
"are distributed throughout all Cuban
hospitals" and revealed that the island now
possesses 16 electro-surgical units.
"We’ve
visited practically all the country’s hospitals
where the equipment has been installed," he
said, which in his opinion has facilitated
"much more direct and ample contact with both
surgeons and technicians in order to be able to
exchange impressions."
Euro
Tade has also given training courses for Cubans on
both the island and in Spain, the headquarters of
this latest technology.
This
has been very important, he noted, "in terms of
giving skills to medical staff and maintenance
instruction for engineers."
He
stated that the firm brought a totally electronic
incubator to this edition of the fair, and mentioned
that Cuba had shown interest in purchasing it.
According
to the Spanish legal representative, the incubator
was tested over a period of eight months with a 1
lb. little girl born prematurely in Havana’s
Ramón González Coro maternity-infant hospital, a
reference center on neonatal care.
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