Revolutionary solidarity at work

Cuban Trained US Doctors Already Working in Haiti

By Cuban News Agency

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 6 (acn) The first group of US graduates of Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine (LASM) are already in Haiti working at afield hospital in Crois des Bouquet.

Seven young women physicians graduated in 2007, 2008 and 2009 arrived in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday evening and on Friday morning they were already providing medical services to hundreds of Haitian people alongside the Cuban medical brigade in that locality.

The young doctors said that last January 18th they learned of a call by Pastors for Peace - a project of the US Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), which administers the LASM scholarship program for US students – urging US graduates from the Havana medical school to voluntarily join the efforts of the Cuban medical brigade currently working in Haiti, whose capital was hit by a devastating earthquake last month.

“These dedicated and skilled young doctors are ready to serve. They received their MD degrees in Cuba, with special training in disaster management and public health, and they are uniquely prepared for the multiple challenges of this urgent mission,” said Rev. Lucius Walker Jr., executive director of IFCO.

“We have sent them to Haiti with backpacks full of medicines and supplies—3/8 of a ton of medical aid for Haiti and more aid will follow,” he added.

The doctors - Elsie Walter, Nylon Manning, Wing Wu, Keyshia Covingtoa, Melissa Babie, Melissa Rose Michell and Martina Pierre - are graduates of the LASM, which was founded as part of a Comprehensive Health Plan for Central America and the Caribbean that Cuba established in response to the devastation of Hurricanes Mitch and Georges in 1998.

A Cuban medical brigade of 350 physicians plus other medical personnel has been on the ground in Haiti for the last ten years, working in remote communities where people had no other access to health care services. More than 6,000 Cuban doctors have served in Haiti as part of that brigade. Nearly 400 young Haitians have also received full-scholarship medical training at the LASM, and are now attending the wounded in Haiti.

LASM is now training students from 49 different nations of the Americas, Africa, and other regions. Among the graduates are 33 young people from the United States.