Thu Jul 19, 2007 7:30PM EDT
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA (Reuters) - Three New York rescue workers injured in the
September 11 attacks got the best treatment Cuba can offer in Michael
Moore's film critique of U.S. health care, the Cuban doctors who
attended them said this week.
The 9/11 responders spent 10 days on the 19th floor of Cuba's flagship
hospital with a view of the Caribbean sea, a sharp contrast to many
Cuban hospitals that are crumbling, badly lit, and which lack equipment
and medicines.
They included a fireman and an emergency medical technician, Regina
Cervantes, with respiratory problems caused by inhaling dust and fumes
in the World Trade Center ruins.
There were given a barrage of tests, including a psychological
evaluation, and new dosages of medication. One got a tooth implant for a
jaw fractured at Ground Zero.
The main difference with their treatment in the United States: there was
no bill.
"We can't say we did miracles in the few days they were here. What we
did was give them the highest quality treatment. It was totally free,"
said Dr. Nelson Gomez, medical director of the Hermanos Almejeiras Hospital.
"They were not here long, but they did improve." he said.
Cervantes, who rushed to Ground Zero on September 11 and had a badly
burnt airway after three days of rescue work, said last month that after
being treated in Havana she was taken off medication she could hardly
afford in the United States.
The movie, "SiCKo", has stirred heated debate in the United States since
opening in June.
Moore used Cuba to argue that other countries are providing better
health care to its citizens than the United States with far fewer
resources, putting the blame on profit-driven U.S. pharmaceutical and
medical insurance industries.
Communist Cuba's universal free health system has achieved low child
mortality and high longevity rates on a par with rich nations since
Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.
But the hospital where SiCKO's patients were treated is an exception in
Cuba, where patients of many other hospitals complain they have to take
their own sheets and food.
The building with a majestic high-ceiling lobby was meant to be Cuba's
central bank when it was started by U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio
Batista. Completed years after Castro's revolution, it was turned into
Cuba's top hospital.
The 750-bed Hermanos Almejeiras is Cuba's main hospital for heart and
liver transplants with a staff of 500 doctors and 800 nurses.
Cuban health officials say they have given priority to preventing
disease by renovating a network of 498 neighborhood health centers
across the island that bring health care closer to people's homes.
The number of children dying before their fifth birthday is seven per
1,000 live births in Cuba, versus eight per 1,000 in the United States,
according to the World Health Organization.
At Rampa Polyclinic in Havana, where Moore's group was seen before
referral to hospital, Dr. Juan Carlos Castellanos said Cubans do not die
of infectious diseases prevalent in Third World countries.
"The main causes of death in Cuba are the same as in rich nations:
cardiovascular disease and cancer," he said, sitting under a picture of
revolutionary icon and doctor, Che Guevara.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1936307620070719
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