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Cuban medical personnel (in Cuba t-shirts) treat an earthquake victim in the  Hospital  Universitaire de la Paix, Port-au-Prince, Jan. 18, 2010. Cuba in Haiti Cuba's rapid response to the 2010 earthquake, without troops to "protect" them from Haiti's poor, stands in sharp contrast to the dysfunctional and hostile American response, grounded in fear of "looters" and "rioters," prioritizing an illusory security over basic humanity. Cuba's long term plan in Haiti is to train Haitian doctors and medical personnel to work in their own country, a solid effort that has already produced hundreds of young doctors and avoids the racism and paternalism inherent in some mainstream aid efforts. The Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC) is a US nonprofit that has geared up to support Cuban trained Haitian doctors and other medical personnel working with Cuban doctors as a way of getting around the barbaric embargo and supporting Cuba's gallant effort.  You can help sustain them, see Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba: MEDICC Fact Sheet: Cuban Medical Cooperation with Haiti UPDATES: Cuban-Haitian Medical Teams in Haiti PHOTOS of Cuban Medical Teams at Work in Haiti The work of the Cubans and Haitians in the past week is described in these video feeds from CNN’s Shasta Darlington and Steve Kastenbaum. See also Emergency Earthquake Appeal: Support Cuban-Trained Haitian Doctors  1/21/2010 The Social Medicine Portal: "We have received an appeal from our friends at MEDICC who are providing support to Haitian doctors in Haiti who have been trained in Cuba. This is a particularly important effort since it strengthens the local medical infrastructure; these Haitian doctors will remain in place long after the disaster relief ends. And it also breaks with the mainly paternalistic (and subtly racist) presentation of Haitians as the passive recipients of help provided by outside agents." Haiti and Cuba signed a medical cooperation agreement in 1998.

Articles

VIVA CUBA! Cuban Doctors Treating the People of Haiti  1/24/2010 Haiti Cuba Venezuela Analysis: See pics - "Since the earthquake, Cuba has sent an additional 100 doctors and last year students at LASM sent a letter to Raul pleading to have the “honor” to go to Haiti to help. Cuba’s humanitarian assistance to the world began just a few years after the revolution when a Cuban boat dropped a load of arms to assist in the Algerian independence struggle. The boat returned with 76 injured Algerian guerillas along with 20 children from a refugee camp. During Guinea-Bissau’s war of independence from the Portuguese, Cuban ships regularly picked up the injured, which included many children, mostly orphans, and took them to Cuba for medical care and schooling. And since then, over 56,000 Cubans have worked in Africa as doctors, teachers, engineers, sports trainers and skilled workers. It has been said many times that “when Africa called, Cuba answered.” Now we must add, when Haiti called, Cuba answered a long time ago and continues its service to the people of Haiti."

Cuba stands by the Haitian People  1/21/2010 Cuban Embassy, Botswana: "The Cuban doctors began to offer their services immediately after the earthquake. It was the most important health care assistance received by Haitian people in the first 72 hours. On 13 January, over 60 health staff joined those in to Port au Prince, including specialists from the Henry Reeve Contingent with experienced in emergencies when similar disasters occurred in Asia and Latin America countries. Until Thursday 14 January the Cuban Medical Brigade had assisted 1 987 patients and performed 111 surgeries, at health centers in Port au Prince: Field Hospital Annex, Hospital La Renaissance, Ofatma Hospital, Diagnostic Health Centers of Grand Goave and Integral Diagnostic Center Mirebalais, the latter two located on the outskirts of the capital."

Emergency Earthquake Appeal: Support Cuban-Trained Haitian Doctors  1/21/2010 The Social Medicine Portal: "We have received an appeal from our friends at MEDICC who are providing support to Haitian doctors in Haiti who have been trained in Cuba. This is a particularly important effort since it strengthens the local medical infrastructure; these Haitian doctors will remain in place long after the disaster relief ends. And it also breaks with the mainly paternalistic (and subtly racist) presentation of Haitians as the passive recipients of help provided by outside agents."

Emergency earthquake appeal: Support Cuban-trained Haitian doctors  1/20/2010 Progresso Weekly: "While U.S. law does not allow Cuban doctors in Haiti to receive these essential medical materials -- the U.S. embargo taking its toll post-disaster -- MEDICC and Global Links will ensure distribution to the young Haitian physicians working in public hospitals and clinics alongside the Cuban team, seeing hundreds of patients daily."

The First Responders - The Blackout on Cuban Aid to Haiti  1/19/2010 Counterpunch: "The Christian Science Monitor, in a second article, quoted Laurence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense and now based at the Center for American Progress, as saying that the US, which is leading the relief efforts in Haiti, should “consider tapping the expertise of neighboring Cuba,” which he noted, “has some of the best doctors in the world--we should see about flying them in.” As for the rest of the US corporate media, they simply ignored Cuba. In fact, left unmentioned was the reality that Cuba already had nearly 400 doctors, EMTs and other medical personnel posted to Haiti to help with the day-to-day health needs of this poorest nation in the Americas, and that those professionals were the first to respond to the disaster, setting up a hospital right next to the main hospital in Port-au-Prince which collapsed in the earthquake, as well as a second tent-hospital elsewhere in the stricken city."

U.S. and Cuba should work together to help Haiti  1/15/2010 CNN: "Shortly after, in October 2005, the Reeves Brigade was dispatched to help provide much-needed medical relief after the devastating Kashmir earthquake that tore through the Himalayan mountain region along Pakistan and Kashmir. The United States and Europe each sent teams of doctors to Pakistan, each with one base camp deployed for a month. The Cubans deployed seven major base camps and 30 field hospitals in the fundamentalist Islamic region of Pakistan, a nation with which Cuba did not have diplomatic relations at the time. Today, the Cubans and Pakistanis have embassies in each other's capitals. Bruno Rodriguez, the new foreign minister of Cuba, who was then the deputy, headed the mission and lived in Pakistan's rugged mountains for that full year. The Cuban medical teams reportedly worked constructively and positively with personnel from the U.S. and Europe -- and this kind of collaboration, even if informal, could be the kind of confidence-building narrative to move U.S.-Cuba relations out of the gridlock they have been in for decades."

To Increase Help for Haiti, Obama Should Let U.S-Cuba Cooperation Take Flight  1/15/2010 Huffington Post: "According to Spanish press reports, this contingent is already providing emergency medical care across Haiti for patients that Cuban doctors had already been treating for many years. Immediately following the earthquake, these doctors opened up two make-shift clinics in their residences because local hospitals were destroyed. Cuban doctors then moved to reopen the "Social Security" hospital and started operating on the injured. A day ago, the Cubans reopened the national hospital and started to treat people. Their work could form the foundation for broad Cuban-U.S. cooperation. First, as U.S. AID and military teams roll into Haiti, the U.S. government should make it clear that our personnel should cooperate, coordinate, and work with the Cuban medical personnel in Haiti. They know Haiti, they've been providing health care in Haiti since 1998, and they have been running a highly effective medical response since the earthquake occurred."

Henry Reeve Cuban Medical Brigade Serving in Haiti  1/15/2010 Juventud Rebelde: "Despite repeated aftershocks following the 7.2 earthquake that shook Haiti on Tuesday, a 60-member relief team of Cuban healthcare professionals is already providing medical assistance in that country. The team is part of the Henry Reeve emergency medical brigade, a contingent of Cuban doctors specializing in disaster situations and epidemics created by Fidel Castro to bring professional assistance to peoples in need in any corner of the world. In a catastrophe report published by the Cubadebate website, Cuban radio correspondent Isidro Fardales reports that this group of specialists brings the total number of Cuban doctors working in Haiti to 300, many of whom were sent to Puerto Principe in the aftermath of the earthquake."

Cuba increases aid to Haiti  1/14/2010 Granma: "He said they had been able to confirm the status of all those working "within the city of Port-au-Prince. Only two of them received very slight injuries, and the others have confirmed that they are all right." "We are verifying the situation and gathering complete information about cooperative workers in other parts of the country. We have been able to locate the majority of them and they are fine," he assured. The minister added that victims have been receiving medical attention from the Cuban brigade since the earthquake struck. He noted that "they are now working in two campaign hospitals in our medical personnel’s accommodation facilities." He said that plans are underway to more emergency aid to the sister Caribbean nation, consisting of "a quantity of medicine and heath materials. An additional number of doctors are to travel there.""

Haiti's plight can bind US and Cuba  1/14/2010 Guardian, UK: "Moving beyond the cold war stasis in US-Cuba relations is a priority of Barack Obama's administration, and the devastation in Haiti provides a platform to provide relief for a desperate nearby nation and build collaboration between Cuba and the US. Many great American voices from Brent Scowcroft and George Shultz to Jackson Browne and Bill Richardson have argued that the US-Cuba embargo makes no sense as foreign policy, that the right of Americans to travel anywhere in the world should not be suspended in the case of Cuba, that Cuba's exports of doctors rather than arms should be more than enough reason to strike Cuba off America's watch list of state sponsors of terror."

With Help From Cuba, Haiti Tries A Switch To Compact Fluorescent Lights  11/28/2007 Haiti Analysis 

Cuban doctors continue saving lives in Haiti  10/14/2004 Granma 

Cuban doctors continue saving lives in Haiti - A 64-strong brigade is currently working in Gonaïves, badly damaged by Hurricane Jeanne  10/13/2004 SF Bay View 

Cuba has 600 doctors and health experts in Haiti  9/22/2004 AFP 

In Haiti, Cuban doctors stayed when no one else would  3/9/2004 Dallas Morning News 

Potential Cuba - US Cooperation

The cooperation model that could develop in Haiti between Cuba and the US has its forerunners in Honduras and Pakistan:

HOSPITAL GARIFUNA: Cuba y Estados Unidos trabajan juntos en Honduras  8/29/2009 Dick Emanuelsson: "Entrevista a John Garamendi, Vicegobernador del Estado de California en Estados Unidos durante la inauguración de una clínica en Ciraboya."  See also Hospital Garifuna de Ciriboya. The Cuban trained Garifuna doctors also received support from California Lieutenant Governor Garamendi and a California union.

and

U.S. and Cuba should work together to help Haiti  1/15/2010 CNN: "Shortly after, in October 2005, the Reeves Brigade was dispatched to help provide much-needed medical relief after the devastating Kashmir earthquake that tore through the Himalayan mountain region along Pakistan and Kashmir. The United States and Europe each sent teams of doctors to Pakistan, each with one base camp deployed for a month. The Cubans deployed seven major base camps and 30 field hospitals in the fundamentalist Islamic region of Pakistan, a nation with which Cuba did not have diplomatic relations at the time. Today, the Cubans and Pakistanis have embassies in each other's capitals. Bruno Rodriguez, the new foreign minister of Cuba, who was then the deputy, headed the mission and lived in Pakistan's rugged mountains for that full year. The Cuban medical teams reportedly worked constructively and positively with personnel from the U.S. and Europe -- and this kind of collaboration, even if informal, could be the kind of confidence-building narrative to move U.S.-Cuba relations out of the gridlock they have been in for decades."

To Increase Help for Haiti, Obama Should Let U.S-Cuba Cooperation Take Flight  1/15/2010 Huffington Post: "According to Spanish press reports, this contingent is already providing emergency medical care across Haiti for patients that Cuban doctors had already been treating for many years. Immediately following the earthquake, these doctors opened up two make-shift clinics in their residences because local hospitals were destroyed. Cuban doctors then moved to reopen the "Social Security" hospital and started operating on the injured. A day ago, the Cubans reopened the national hospital and started to treat people. Their work could form the foundation for broad Cuban-U.S. cooperation. First, as U.S. AID and military teams roll into Haiti, the U.S. government should make it clear that our personnel should cooperate, coordinate, and work with the Cuban medical personnel in Haiti. They know Haiti, they've been providing health care in Haiti since 1998, and they have been running a highly effective medical response since the earthquake occurred."

Cuba Aids Haiti Relief  1/22/2010 Voice of America: "President Barack Obama has pledged $100 million in aid to the ruined island nation, part of one of the largest international relief efforts in history. The bilateral cooperation between the U.S. and Cuba reflects our overwhelming concern for the welfare of the Haitian people. We will continue to look for areas where cooperation between our 2 nations can support Haitian relief."

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Last modified: January 26, 2010