80 Cuban doctors expected soon-to boost health delivery

EIGHTY Cuban doctors are expected to arrive in the country in the next two weeks to replace those whose contracts expired in the course of this year.
The doctors, who will arrive in batches and will be deployed to health centres in deprived communities, have already undergone the necessary orientation in Cuba to prepare them for their two-year assignment.
The Upper West Region particularly is said to be hit by a shortage of doctors as a result of the expiration of the contracts of the 25 Cuban doctors who were posted there, leaving only two Ghanaian doctors currently serving in the region.
The Cuban Ambassador in Accra, Dr Miguel Perez Cruz, who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday, gave the assurance that the doctors were expected to fill the vacuum that had been created in health delivery in the affected communities.
He said Ghana, under the Comprehensive Health Programme Agreement (CHPA) with Cuba, had the biggest Cuban Medical Brigade in Africa, with an annual posting of 200 doctors, adding that his country currently had about 38,000 of its doctors serving in various countries in the world, with 11,000 to be deployed to replace those who had ended their duties.
He stated that 22 health professionals from Cuba were currently lecturing in some universities in the country, with six of them teaching Spanish at the University of Ghana, while 12 were lecturing in Medicine at the University for Development Studies (UDS).
He said Labiofam, a Cuban biological pharmaceutical industry, was also supporting the Ghana Malaria Control Programme in its fight against malaria.
To give meaning to that, Dr Cruz hinted that the Cuban government was seriously considering establishing a factory in Ghana and Nigeria for the production of chemicals that would kill mosquito larvae to ensure the gradual elimination of malaria from the country.
He explained that Cuba last reported its malaria case in 1967 and since then no cases of malaria had been reported following the establishment of such a chemical factory, saying replicating that initiative in Ghana was a sure way of enjoying a malaria-free society.
Touching on the existing ties between the two countries, the ambassador said a joint commission had been instituted between the two countries under which Ghana and Cuba had continued to enjoy co-operation in various fields such as health, culture and sports.
He was particularly thankful to the Ghana government for supporting Cuba through various United Nation resolutions for the lifting of the economic blockade imposed on Cuba, as well as securing the release of the five Cuban nationals who were “unjustly arrested” and detained in various prisons in the United States.