The Cuban Medical Brigade that consists of 101 doctors, technicians and nurses today held their annual year-end gathering in which they fraternize with each other and try to make Belize as much a home as they can. The new Cuban ambassador to Belize His Excellency Eugenio Martinez says that the work that the Cuban medical personnel perform in Belize is varied and valued.
Eugenio Martinez, Cuban Ambassador
"We have requests since 1999 from the Belize government to support Belize's health system after a hurricane that passed through Belize and we have been paying attention to that request with a great sense of solidarity and friendship to Belize. Mostly we are covering what we call primary medicine, of general medicine, meaning we are the first level of health instead of waiting for them to go to the hospitals. That is what we are doing here."
"We have 65 Belizean students in Cuba to be doctors. The first ones are coming next summer so there is an interchange. I think at the end we will be reducing our presence here because Belizean doctors are going to be educated in Cuba. Our program is comprehensive, there are Cuban doctors here but there are also Belizeans studying medicine in Cuba and other specialties related to health. So I think we will increase our presence in villages but the Belizean doctors will come and work in areas that Cuban doctors have not been fulfilling and that will be next summer when the first set of doctors will graduate from the Latin America School of Medicine."
Meanwhile the Cuban embassy is announcing that two more specialists have been posted in Belize. Radiologist Hugo Escalona Baez arrived in Belize on the 18th December and he is working at the KHMH, while general surgeon Jorge Orestes Montesinos who also arrived on December 18 has been posted at the Southern Regional Hospital.
