Ding-dong! The Witch of Cuba is dead! Castro's dead at 90.

Castro's legacy and the envy of many nations: social care in Cuba
Cuba’s literacy rate is at 100% and life expectancy parallels first world nations, despite limited funding and supplies

The Guardian has a piece up now that is relevant;

Quote:

Quote:

Castro's legacy and the envy of many nations: social care in Cuba
Cuba’s literacy rate is at 100% and life expectancy parallels first world nations,

The fact that Cuba is up in the top tier was the big surprise for me.

Pope Francis issues UNHOLY response to Castro’s death

That this singular and rather pathetic achievment

I wonder if their training really meets contemporary Canadian standards.

George
I really think you and Allan West ought to go on pilgrimage to the Vatican. Some viewpoints should NOT stand

you doubt it?

It really isn't much to brag about

Cuba is far behind the rest of the world in modern medical technology.

According to the World Health Organization statistics for life expectancy at birth, out of 183 ranked countries the US is 31st, (79.3 years), and Cuba is 32nd, (79.1 years). The assumption has to be that medical systems are roughly equal, otherwise you would not have people living the same amount of years.

Cuba's Most Valuable Export: Its Healthcare Expertise

Bill Frist , CONTRIBUTOR
I cover global and domestic health care and health care reform.

When you think of Cuban exports, you might think of sugar, or perhaps its famously sought-after cigars. But one of the nation’s most profitable exports is actually its own healthcare professionals.

The Cuban government reportedly earns $8 billion a year in revenues from professional services carried out by its doctors and nurses, with some 37,000 Cuban nationals currently working in 77 countries. The socialist regime allows the government to collect a portion of the incomes earned by Cuban workers abroad.

For example, in 2013 Cuba inked a deal with the Brazilian Health Ministry to send 4,000 Cuban doctors to underserved regions of Brazil by the end of the year – worth as much as $270 million a year to the Castro government. By the end of 2014, Brazil’s Mais Medicos program, meaning “More Doctors,” had brought in 14,462 health professionals – 11,429 of which came from Cuba.

Over the past 50 years, Cuba consistently used the export of its doctors as a powerful and far-reaching tool of health diplomacy. The island nation has built good will and improved its global standing with emerging countries around the world during its years of isolation. It sent its first doctors overseas as far back as 1963, and to date has sent physicians to over 100 countries.

In my travels doing medical mission work to underserved regions in over a dozen African nations, the most common nonindigenous health personnel I run across are doctors and nurses from Cuba offering frontline primary and emergency care. They serve and cure, building trust in Cuba’s name globally.

Why is the medical expertise of this impoverished nation in demand? And why is it home to a population whose life expectancies rival those of much richer countries? Researchers have called this phenomenon the Cuban Health Paradox.
On two health-oriented trips to Cuba in the past year, what struck me was a systematically planned and organized primary care delivery system that captured the doctor-patient relationships of my father’s era of medical practice. Cuba treats healthcare as a human right, specifically stipulated in its constitution. Cuban nationals receive care for free, and have a neighborhood primary care physician who often knows them by name and sees them regularly.

The doctors are paid paltry amounts, many having second jobs. But in my conversations with them, they reflect love for their work and a palpable passion about caring for their patients. In turn, the patients trust and respect their conveniently-located and easy-to-reach doctor, go to them early in the course of an illness without financial barrier, and are likely to follow their recommendations.