Cuban doctors to arrive in Ecuador in December

Cuban doctors to arrive in Ecuador in December



CUBA STANDARD — The first of 1,000 Cuban mostly primary-care physicians

will begin arriving in Ecuador in December, under agreements signed by

the health ministries of Cuba and Ecuador last week in Havana.



The first 200 family doctors should arrive in late January, according to

one of the agreements signed by Ecuadorean Health Minister Carina Vance

and her Cuban peer, Roberto Morales Ojeda. The agreements also cover

epidemiologists and physical therapists.



The Cuban help allows implementation of a more cost-efficient

primary-care model in the country that focuses on prevention, the

Ecuadorean health ministry argues in a press release.



"This leads directly to a reduction in the use of services that require

hospitalization or curative treatment due to gravity and complications,

as well as health rehabilitation services," a communique by the

Ecuadorean health ministry says.



President Rafael Correa announced in September that his government would

spend $30 million per year on the program.



"This is a model we have to implement in Ecuador," Correa said at the

time about Cuba's primary care physicians, the backbone of the island's

cost-efficient medical system. He added that the Cuban doctors will be a

stopgap measure while more Ecuadorean primary-care physicians are being

trained in Cuba.



Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) has graduated 1,400

Ecuadorean students, for which Ecuador has paid $218 million, according

to that country's health ministry. Cuba has committed to training 10,000

Ecuadorean primary-care community physicians and technicians.



The Cuban doctors will work in underserved poor neighborhoods and rural

areas, practicing primary-care, family and preventive medicine.



The backbone of Cuba's for-pay medical service exports has been

Venezuela, covering some 30,000 Cuban healthcare practitioners. The

Ecuadorean agreements further broaden Cuban efforts to diversify for-pay

exports. Marking a major breakthrough, Brazil is contracting 5,400 Cuban

doctors, generating estimated revenues of $250 million per year for

Cuba. Cuba is also expanding more modest medical service programs in

South Africa, Angola and Algeria, and it started programs in Saudi

Arabia, Qatar, and Portugal. Finally, Norway and Brazil have funded

medical relief efforts involving Cuban doctors in Haiti.



While service exports — most of them medical services — a decade ago

surpassed tourism as Cuba's main source of hard currency, by far most of

the healthcare exports are under agreements with oil-rich Venezuela. An

estimated 30,000 medical personnel from Cuba work in Venezuela, or in

third countries under programs funded by Venezuela.



Next to healthcare service exports, the biggest gain for the Cuban

economy of closer medical cooperation with Ecuador could be

pharmaceutical exports.



In 2011, Correa pledged his country would buy up to $1.5 billion worth

of Cuban-made medical drugs and vaccines that year. The pledge came

after the Ecuadorean health minister toured Laboratorios Novatec and

Laboratorios Farmacéuticos AICA in Havana, which produce generic

versions of Aspirin and Tamiflu, as well as medical supplies such as

vials and aerosols. However, arguing that Cuban products were not

registered in their country, Ecuadorean critics were apparently able to

significantly reduce these purchases; at the time, Correa publicly

complained about "sabotage" in his own health ministry.



Source: "Cuban doctors to arrive in Ecuador in December « Cuba Standard,

your best source for Cuban business news" -

http://www.cubastandard.com/2013/11/21/cuban-doctors-to-arrive-in-ecuador-in-december/