Cuban doctors present research results
With a shortage of hard currency, the nation of Cuba has little to offer in the way of financial aid to its neighbours. But what it lacks in cash is compensated by human capital: thousands of trained personnel in virtually every field under the sun. A good number of those skilled Cubans are working in Belize…and some of them gathered today in Belize City to compare notes.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
With over one hundred doctors and nurses dispersed throughout the country, the Cuban Medical Mission has been treating a lot of people. But their work does not end there. They have also compiled and documented their findings to help discover what makes Belizeans sick, and perhaps where we need to invest in our health care system.
Dr. Errol Vanzie, Director of Health Services
“It is an important meeting from the scientific point of view, in the sense that it serves an example of what dedicated professionals can do to expand on the body of knowledge, our knowledge on the health professionals in Belize, knowledge of the different diseases, the natural history of those diseases in this country and how it affects the population.”
Dr. Leoniardo Cuesta, Cuban Medical Mission
“Here in Belize we have doctors in different rural clinics, urban clinics, in the out district hospitals and in the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital too. In all of these place of work they have gotten all the information they have produced during their performance and then they analyze this information and look for data that they need and then they compile a report of their work during a period.”
“Most of them are descriptions of the situation they find in the different community and description in interesting cases. They look and they check in their daily performance and some of them are research looking to identify the principle troubles in health.”
And one doctor who has been watching the health trends of Belizeans is Dr. Lavina Herrera, who has been making her rounds on the south side of Belize City.
Dr. Lavina Herrera
“For the past year we have been providing health care in the Port Loyola Area. Today we have two main objectives: one is to show the quality of pre-natal care in Belize City and two is to give an overview of the state of health care in this community.”
Jose Sanchez
“Has research been something that has been carried out in Belize’s medical field before?”
Errol Vanzie
“Unfortunately there has been little research done in Belize. The Ministry of Health has made different efforts to promote research and it is happening in some of the districts, and mainly in the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, but I think we need to do a lot more in this field.?
Jose Sanchez
?So this is a positive step for Belize.?
Errol Vanzie
?Oh, definitely it is a positive step. The amount of information that will be generated through this meeting will be of benefit not only to us health professionals, but to the population at large. At the same time it will serve as a stimulus for our national health professional to get involved into research.”
After the results are discussed, the doctors will compile all the findings and present them to the Ministry of Health. Reporting for News 5, Jose Sanchez.
The time frame for the research was April twenty-sixth, 1999 through the end of November 2000.
