MBOMBELA – Cuba and Mpumalanga agreed last week that they would continue their bilateral co-operation agreements as they are.
The Cuban Ambassador, Mr Carlos Fernández de Cossio met with the provincial government in Mbombela on Friday.
The two parties agreed verbally that Cuba will continue helping the public sector here with medical staff and technical assistance in constructing government housing.
Currently an agreement is in place between the two countries, which was signed by both health ministers in May 2012. To date, 37 students from Mpumalanga have qualified as doctors in Cuba.
The country’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) has trained thousands of physicians from low-income countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas since its inception in 2005.
Currently there are 157 students from the province studying medicine in Cuba. At the end of October, another 100 students are to start their medical training there.
In addition, Cuban health professionals have been practising in public hospitals, clinics and community health centres. Presently there are 25 Cuban doctors in the employ of the Mpumalanga Department of Health, with an additional 22 expected to arrive by the end of December.
Acting Premier Mr Vusi Shongwe, who hosted the ambassador, said these health professionals have enabled the provincial government to render better quality health services, especially in the rural areas where it had always been difficult to recruit local doctors.
“We feel indebted to the Cuban people as our friends, brothers, comrades and liberators, for the selflessness they had always displayed on us,” he said.
According to the World Health Organisation, (WHO) the largest country in the Caribean Sea has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, based on preventative care, offering citizens access to state funded healthcare despite limited resources, bringing Cuba’s life expectancy on a par with the developed world.
The WHO has said that it was a testament that a lack of access elsewhere reflected a political will to protect the most vulnerable populations.
De Cossio says he has been assured by health minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi that the national government is committed to improving the poor conditions of public health, which was inherited from the past.
