CUBA AND VENEZUELA
Medical benefit
An oil-for-doctors partnership between Cuba and Venezuela has provided
free eye surgery to hundreds of thousands -- and a steady flow of oil
and cash to Cuba
BY MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Cuba@MiamiHerald.com
HAVANA - Roberto Andrade sat in a hospital waiting room beside rows of
patients, each with a bandage on one eye, and explained why he considers
himself a diplomat of sorts.
The Salvadoran bus driver had cataract surgery on both eyes, courtesy of
the Cuban and Venezuelan governments.
''In my country, a surgery like that costs $8,000,'' Andrade said. ``I
make $12 a day. I would never, ever, be able to save that much. Now I am
an ambassador: I go around El Salvador telling everyone how well I was
treated.''
Andrade, 56, is one of nearly half a million people -- most of them
Venezuelans -- to undergo eye surgery in Cuba in the past two years. He
also represents the latest boom in Cuba's growing economy: a medical
service industry that treats low-income people from around Latin America.
Although the financial details of the program are not known, Operation
Miracle is part of a broader oil-for-doctors program that experts say is
helping funnel some $2 billion in Venezuelan subsidies a year to Cuba.
President Hugo Chávez's oil-rich government is delivering 90,000 barrels
of oil a day, and Cuba in turn provides medical services.
It's a good deal for both nations: While the Cuban doctors' work boosts
Havana's coffers, both Cuba and Venezuela strengthen their images for
solidarity with the poor.
Chief among the Cuban medical services: cataract surgery.
Last month, the Cuban government announced that 300,000 Venezuelans and
100,000 people from 28 other nations have been treated so far. The
majority are flown to Havana on Cuban airliners and put up for two weeks
at resort hotels, courtesy of Chávez.
Fleets of new Chinese buses carry the patients between hospitals and
hotels -- a source of bitterness among some Cubans, who have to wait
hours for decrepit mass transit while foreigners enjoy air-conditioned
comfort.
But for Cuba, the benefits are plenty. Cuba not only gets Venezuela's
oil, but also gets paid for providing the services and lodging, experts say.
''I have paid for nothing, not even a cup of coffee,'' said Franklin
Urdaneta, a Venezuelan whose 16-year-old daughter, Yecenia del Carmen,
recently had a sagging eyelid lifted by the Cuban doctors. ``I'm very
grateful.''
The Urdanetas were put up for 19 days while Yecenia had preoperative
office visits, he said. He added that the patients received everything
free of charge, no matter their politics.
''This surgery is not just for Chavistas,'' he said, referring to the
president's supporters. ``It's for people who need it. I have even seen
. . . patients with $600 cellphones.''
This month, Operation Miracle will spread to Africa and Asia, its
directors have said. Soon, the program expects to serve at least one
million patients a year.
And now, in addition to 13 ophthalmologic centers in Venezuela, clinics
have opened in Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Bolivia.
The eye surgeries also are available to Cubans, and the government has
launched an outreach program to find and test citizens with potential
eye problems.
But the round-the-clock surgeries are not without their detractors.
As the program has spread abroad, complaints have followed. In Uruguay,
the doctors' association sued, saying the Cuban doctors are not licensed
to practice in that country. Some Jamaican patients reported their
vision worsened.
NURSE'S CRITICISMS
A nurse in the program told The Chicago Tribune last year that the
quality of the surgeries was suffering in the pursuit of speed, and that
important preoperative tests were often skipped.
Despite those objections, the program, designed to help patients who
can't pay for private healthcare and don't have insurance, is widely
considered a triumph for both nations.
''It's a no-brainer in that it's enormously successful, enormously
profitable and enormously politically successful for Cuba and
Venezuela,'' said Hans de Salas-del Valle, a research associate at the
University of Miami's Cuba Transition Project. ``This is part of a
broader scheme that enables Chávez to funnel more funding to Cuba, and
Chávez also reaps the political reward.''
Even if some surgeries didn't go perfectly, de Salas-del Valle said, the
program should be judged in the context that most of the lowincome
patients would never have had the surgery otherwise.
EYE DOCTORS GALORE
Havana officials have boasted that the Cuban Ophthalmology Institute
alone has 62 doctors and dozens of residents. The island, they say, now
has more than 800 eye doctors, compared with 117 before the revolution
-- only 37 of whom stayed in the country after Fidel Castro took power
in 1959.
More than 220,000 Cuban doctors, nurses and other medical personnel
worked abroad from 1963 to 2004, and another 100,000 are being trained
for service in the Third World, the government has said.
The eye surgeries, however, mark the first time that hundreds of
thousands of patients are flying to Cuba for treatment.
''Cuba has for years used its strength in medical services as an
instrument in foreign policy,'' said William LeoGrande, a professor at
American University. ``It's not the Peace Corps, but it's the same idea.
In fact, it is exactly the same: sending people abroad to sow goodwill.''
The Miami Herald withheld the name of the correspondent who filed this
report because the author lacked the Cuban journalist visa required to
work on the island.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/front/16423167.htm
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