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Topic: Castro's 'miracle' cures the poor of blindness
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Timetrvlr
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11409
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posted 19 December 2005 07:53 PM
By Tom Fawthrop in Havana
The Independent
Published: 18 December 2005 The rich tourists whose luxury yachts once crowded the idyllic Marina Hemingway complex on the outskirts of the Cuban capital are shocked to find all Havana's hotel rooms fully booked until mid-2006. More than a dozen hotels have been temporarily closed to tourists to make way for a different kind of visitor. Most of them arrive nearly blind; but all will be able to see perfectly before they leave. A remarkable humanitarian programme is under way here, which aims to restore the sight of six million people through free eye surgery. Launched in July by the 79-year-old Cuban President, Fidel Castro, and Venezuela's Socialist leader, President Hugo Chavez, Operation Miracle has brought daily planeloads of the poor from across Latin America and the Caribbean to Havana for surgery. Cuba provides the medical skills, Venezuela the petro-dollars. People suffering from cataracts and other eye conditions that can be quickly remedied are candidates. Cuba's comprehensive, free healthcare system has a ratio of one doctor for every 170 Cubans, compared with 188 in the US and 250 in the UK.
From: BC, Canada | Registered: Dec 2005
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Red Albertan
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9195
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posted 20 December 2005 08:33 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Nanuq:
One hopes that Fidel's political prisoners are getting the same standard of medical care.
They probably have better medical care than the THOUSANDS of "political prisoners" [kept] in the US and in prisons around the world. If you want to discuss political prisoners, then start a new thread. THIS thread is not about political prisoners.
From: the world is my church, to do good is my religion | Registered: May 2005
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Boarsbreath
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9831
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posted 20 December 2005 07:35 PM
You can put it a whole &*^% of a lot stronger than that. Resource money in the developing world means corruption, pretty much period. Rentiers are rentiers, and oil or diamonds or gold is the curse of states from Papua New Guinea to Nigeria. What Chavez is doing is beyond parallel.What Cuba is doing is even more interesting. It has the expertise, thanks to the marvellous education system from the days of both idealism and Russian subsidies. Instead of exporting it in a military form, as in the 80s, and instead of draining it like virtually every other small developing country (especially in the Caribbean: over 85% of Guyanese with degrees, eg, live abroad, mostly in Canada), it's using them at home. Presumably to some domestic economic benefit: a twist on tourist dollars. Kind of like the medical tourists going to India for operations they'd have to wait months or years for in New Zealand or Aussie (or Canada?). Good on old Fidel. And if he's vindictively paranoid about subversives, which he is, well, remember to judge him in a Central American-Caribbean context. A human-rights ideal he's not, but I don't see how you can deny that he's a shining light down there.
From: South Seas, ex Montreal | Registered: Jul 2005
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