 |
| |
| Cuban Doctors Assist Haitian People after Tropical Storm Jeanne |
|
22 September 2004
Havana (Prensa Latina) – More than 400 Cuban experts, mostly physicians, are assisting the Haitian people and are contributing to the country's reconstruction after Tropical Storm Jeanne hit the nation, killing more than 700, according to recent statistics.
Official sources said that 408 Cuban experts, including 368 doctors, are working in Haiti.
The head of the Cuban mission, Juan Carlos Chávez, told the local media that the Cuban doctors are working on the recuperation of facilities to assist the hurricane victims.
According to Cuban television, the doctors who were working on Tortuga Island, which was completely devastated, were evacuated to northern Haiti.
The Haitian government declared the north and northwestern parts of the country regions of national disaster and called for international solidarity to palliate this emergency. |
 |
|
Cuba Offers Medical Aid to Save Lives of America's Poor and Disadvantaged
|
|
|
21 June 2004
Havana (Prensa Latina) – Cuban President Fidel Castro offered free medical care to save the lives of 3,000 poor U.S. citizens in five years in a new letter to American president George W. Bush he read Monday at a rally.
The number of U.S. people to be saved recalls the number of people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., Fidel Castro remembered.
Speaking before more than 200,000 people gathered in Havana he asked U.S. President George W. Bush if he would be ready to give these people permission to travel to the island with this aim.
After stressing it was a matter of values and ethics, the Cuban President also asked Bush if those people would be punished if they accepted the Cuban medical services and decided to come to the Island.
The offer was made ten days before the enforcement of a new package of U.S. measures including drastically restricting travel to the Island by Cuban-Americans and U.S. nationals alike.
Before making his proposal, Fidel Castro recalled the total solidarity with the U.S. people expressed by Cuba right after the unjustifiable terrorist attack against the Twin Towers.
"That same day," he said, "we expressed our views that have been corroborated by subsequent events with an almost mathematical precision."
"War is not the way to put an end to terrorism and violence in the world," he said. "That tragic incident has been used as a pretext to impose a policy of terror and force on our entire planet," the Cuban leader added.
Always addressing Bush, Fidel Castro said "your measures against the Cuban people are a brutal and inhumane action. Cuba can prove that you want to destroy our country whose medical services have saved and continue to save thousands of lives in poor countries of the world, a country that could even be able to save as many poor U.S. citizens as the ones who died in the Twin Towers.
"You are surely aware that there are 44 million people in the U.S. without medical insurance, that in the last two years 82 million people lacked at some point medical insurance and they could not afford the colossal amounts of money charged for vital health services in the U.S.
"By a very conservative estimate, dozens of thousands of lives are lost in the U.S. every year because of this, maybe 30 or 40 times the number of people who died in the Twin Towers," the Cuban leader said.
The Cuban President said that over a five-year period the Island will be ready to save 3,000 poor U.S. citizens who could travel to Cuba with a relative and be treated absolutely free of charge.
After recalling that at present a heart attack can be prevented and some death-causing illnesses can be successfully treated, Fidel Castro told Bush he wanted to ask him a question involving principles and ethics.
"Would you be ready to give those people permission to travel to Cuba in a program aimed at saving one life for each people who died in the brutal attack at the Twin Towers?" he asked.
"And would they be sanctioned in case they accepted those services?" he also asked.
At the end of what he called "A Second Letter" (he also energetically scolded Bush in another letter on May 14), the Cuban leader urged him to "Show the world there is an alternative to arrogance, war, genocide, hatred, selfishness, hypocrisy and deception!"
POSTSCRIPT
25 June 2004
Havana (Prensa Latina) – Aware that 44 million people in the United States lack medical insurance, whereas medical care is free to all in Cuba, President Fidel Castro has offered to save the lives of 3,000 American poor.
In his open letter to US President George W. Bush on June 21, the Cuban president noted that a very conservative estimate indicates many tens of thousands of lives are lost every year in the United States because of the astronomical costs of essential health care services.
Because it is possible to forecast and prevent heart attacks and illnesses that inevitably lead to death, Fidel Castro asked Bush to give permission to 3,000 poor Americans to come to Cuba over a five year period in "a program designed to save a life for every life lost in the horrendous attack on the Twin Towers."
As this article goes to press, there has been no response from the Bush administration that it would not punish those whose lives could be saved in Cuba if they choose to come.
Copyright © 2004 Prensa Latina, SA. All rights reserved.
|
|
|
|
|
More Cuba tours
