Cuban Doctors Praised for Their Work in Post-Cyclone Mozambique

The Cuban Minister of Public Health Jose Angel Portal Sunday praised the work of Cuban doctors in Mozambique who went to treat people affected by cyclone Idai.

"The work that you did was very impressive," said Portal while greeting the specialists of the International Contingent of Physicians Specialized in Situations of Disasters and Serious Epidemics, Henry Reeve at the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana.

“They wrote a new page of solidarity for Cuban public health, and they are part of that history that shows the world what we are capable of doing,” Portal added.

Doctor Rolando Piloto, during the welcome ceremony, said they do their job because of their solidarity with people.

He criticized the Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS) Luis Almagro for calling the health professionals slaves of the Cuban government and used as cheap labor.

“To him, we respond that we are slaves of our altruism and specialize in giving what we have,” Piloto said.

Piloto said Cuba deployed a field hospital with a clinical, surgical and epidemiological profile in Mozambique.

In the city of Beira, services of pediatrics, internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, orthopedics and traumatology, clinical laboratory and ultrasonography were offered, as well as the assembly of an internment area with 12 beds and eight observation beds.

Work related to hygiene and epidemiology was carried out, like fighting against malaria, which is why some 17,000 homes were visited and more than 50,000 residents of that city were benefited.

In the 63 days of stay in that country, the Cuban contingent attended a total of 22,259 patients, 331 surgical interventions were performed, of them, 128 elderly and 203 minors.