Text/Nanke Documentary
Editor/Nan Ke Documentary
<<——Preamble——>>
"Too far from heaven, too close to America. ”
This proverb from Mexico is a direct reflection of the current situation facing Latin American countries.
U.S.-Mexico border
For Cuba, the only socialist country in the Western Hemisphere, the situation is even worse than that of other Latin American countries, since the victory of the revolution in 1959, Cuba has been caught in the economic blockade of the United States for more than 60 years.
Cuba
However, despite the economic blockade imposed by the United States for many years, Cuba did not collapse because of it, but persevered under the American blockade and established a first-class medical system.
So, how did Cuba, which has been under a long-term blockade by the United States, develop into a first-class medical standard?
<< Emphasis on medical education>>
As far as Cuba is concerned, although the US blockade began as early as the 60s of the last century, the Soviet Union gave Cuba a large amount of economic aid during the Cold War, which made Cuba's life during the Cold War still very good.
However, after the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Cuba once relied on for the greatest dependence, plunged the domestic economy into recession during this period.
Faced with such economic difficulties, Cuba began to carry out a series of economic reform measures, focusing on the development of tourism and various important medical industries.
It is precisely because of this series of reform measures that Cuba's economy has been stabilized and restored to a certain extent, and it has developed tenaciously under US sanctions.
However, even in the most difficult time for the Cuban economy, Cubans have not reduced their investment in health care and education, and Cuba will spend about 50% of its budget every year on health care and education.
Cuba invests so much in health education because for Cuba's leaders, "health for all" is their goal.
Thus, in 1999, Fidel Castro founded the Latin American School of Medicine to provide those students with a comprehensive and free medical education.
More importantly, due to the underdeveloped economy of Cuba itself, the income of Cuban doctors is very small compared to other countries.
Therefore, in the process of training doctors, Cubans have focused on cultivating the ideological and moral construction of doctors, and have taken the ideological and moral construction of doctors as an important indicator for evaluating the level of doctors.
For these intellectually educated Cuban doctors, the purpose of their medical studies is not only for their own interests, but also to better serve society and save the lives of others.
It can be said that Cuba's medical education is very developed, and such education can provide a large number of doctors for Cuban society every year, and the large number of doctors also makes it possible to effectively implement a system called "family doctor" in Cuba.
<< - Family doctor system - >>
Although Cuba's medical system is very developed, due to the long-term suppression of US sanctions, Cuba has a very short range of medical products and medical facilities.
For Cubans at the time, some of the more advanced surgeries and drugs were difficult to obtain.
Therefore, in order to solve such a problem, since the 80s of the last century, the Cuban government has begun to shift the focus of medical care downward, so as to establish a family doctor system based on grassroots doctors.
The most important factor in the family doctor system is undoubtedly the family doctors who work hard in the various communities, for whom they must always know the health status of the families in their jurisdiction and treat them as early as possible.
Therefore, in order to cultivate a sense of responsibility among doctors, Cuba not only attaches great importance to the ideological education of medical students, but also specifically requires medical undergraduates to join grassroots community hospitals after graduation, deal with the surrounding residents, and truly understand the health needs of the residents.
It is precisely because of this series of training of family doctors that Cuba has established a very efficient primary health care network.
"We don't wait for the patient to come, we go to search for the patient first, which is the meaning of community screening. ”
After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, Cuba's primary medical care played an extremely important role, and a large number of Cuban doctors went deep into the community to carry out the screening of new crown patients, thus greatly preventing the spread of the initial epidemic.
Even after Cuba fully opened up, due to the presence of a large number of doctors, Cuba was able to pass the peak of the epidemic after the opening up relatively easily.
Of course, grassroots medical security is only one aspect, and if you want to truly have the world's first-class medical level, you can't also do without high-level medical product research and development capabilities.
<< -- Pay attention to the development of medical products -- >>
As far as Cuba is concerned, due to the impact of the sanctions imposed by the United States, Cuba's medical cooperation with other Western countries has been greatly difficult, so Cuba attaches great importance to the research and development and production of its own medical products.
In the 80s of the last century, under the vigorous promotion of the Cuban government, a large number of biomedical institutions have been established in Cuba and a highly independent industrial chain has been formed.
It is such an industrial chain that makes Cuba's domestic medical technology very developed, and many of the special drugs they have developed are even better than those of some developed Western countries.
On November 5, 2016, the New York Times reported the following news:
An American lady with advanced lung cancer has been participating in various cancer treatments in the United States in order to live longer, but even so, doctors in the United States have told her that she has only five months left to live.
Although American doctors have given the old lady a "death sentence", the old lady's family has not given up on this fate, they continue to search for various specific drugs for cancer, and finally find out about a vaccine developed by Cubans called CimaVax.
For such a vaccine, the old lady was very apprehensive at first, after all, those high-cost special drugs can not effectively prolong the life of cancer patients, is this cheap vaccine useful?
However, five years after receiving the Cuban-developed CimaVax vaccine, the elderly American lady is still able to live a normal life, and her cancer cells are under control to a certain extent.
During the pandemic, Cuba, with a population of only 11 million, independently developed its own vaccine.
Through these few things, we can find that the level of medical product research and development in Cuba is very high.
These highly effective medical products have strengthened Cuba's already well-established basic medical services, thus enabling poor Cuba to establish a world-class medical and health service system.
<<·——Conclusion——·>>
Although the overall medical level in Cuba is very high, due to the continuous sanctions imposed by the United States, Cuba is facing many problems such as the continuous aging of various medical facilities and the lack of raw materials for medical products.
Disease is the common enemy of mankind, and a country's medical supplies should not be blocked for so-called political reasons, but mankind should join hands to face the challenges from disease.