>from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>subject: Cuba:Revolutionary Leadership Appeals to the people. Health
> Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000
>
>APPEAL FROM THE REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP TO THE CUBAN PEOPLE
>
>For over six months our people have been enduring with indignation
>the pain caused by the infamous outrage committed against a Cuban
>child and his family.
>
>Eli�n spent close to five months kidnapped by a criminal Mafia that
>put in serious jeopardy his physical and mental health. According to
>international law and the laws of both countries the shipwrecked
>child, whose mother had tragically perished, should have immediately
>been returned to his father in Cuba who was claiming for him. No one
>in the United States had absolutely any right over the child.
>However, he was placed in the hands of a cynical and immoral man who
>seized him under the pretext of a distant relationship.
>
>The U.S. courts had absolutely no right to decide on a matter that
>was the exclusive competence of the Cuban courts. Still, the opposite
>was forcibly done. It was our people's tenacious and resolute
>struggle in support of a dedicated and exemplary father and a humble
>Cuban family, assisted by both reason and rights, that moved the
>world public opinion, particularly the American people which
>overwhelmingly took sides with the boy, the father and the family
>claiming for reunification and for the boy's return to his homeland.
>
>But, the authorities' hesitation, opportunism and political
>cowardice prevented the child's repatriation while an endless,
>arbitrary and murky process unfolded. It was not only the child who
>suffered but also his father and wife and the new son; the maternal
>and paternal grandparents; and, millions of Cuban fathers, mothers,
>grandparents and children who have suffered and are still enduring
>the tragedy of waiting and the nightmare of such predicament. No one
>had any right to hurt them so.
>
>Then, as most Americans and the world expected a swift and fair
>solution, a verdict was issued today that still gives rights and
>prerogatives to an impostor who has shown contempt for the laws and
>orders of the authorities in the country where he lives while opening
>for the six-year-old victim a new chapter of arbitrary actions and
>the possibility of a cruel and endless wait before he can rejoin his
>most immediate family. And this suffering will also be shared by his
>little brother, his father and wife who, in the absence of his
>mother, is caring for him with all the love she can give.
>
>The images of this boy now with his true family, when compared to
>those we could all see as he was manipulated, overexposed and
>exploited, provide irrefutable evidence of the pain caused by the
>kidnapping and the very harsh conditions in which he was forced to
>live for months, at such an early stage of life, with people moved
>only by grossly commercial reasons and dirty politics.
>
>In fact, it is not only Eli�n who is a captive now in the United
>States but also his father, his brother Hianny and his mother. Our
>people have the right to claim for their immediate release and return
>to Cuba. Their retention in America is not only due to the Mafia and
>its allies' unjustifiable and cruel revenge but also to the mean
>purpose and ridiculous hope of the top political and government
>officials in that country to buy out a Cuban father whom they have so
>ruthlessly humiliated and offended but who has shown to them that he
>is a trustworthy, honorable and incorrupt man.
>
>We shall not remain idle while injustice and crimes continue to
>prevail. We will intensify our struggle. And, in order to show the
>world our rejection and our protest and to claim for the return of
>Eli�n, his father Juan Miguel and his family, tomorrow, Friday, at
>10:00 AM, half a million Cuban mothers, grandmothers and women will
>march on the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and then concentrate at
>"Jos� Mart�" Anti-imperialist Square.
>
>There, they shall express themselves not only with firm steps but
>also with deeply felt and incendiary words their repudiation and
>condemnation of the new and cynical mockery against those humble sons
>and daughters of this nation. There will be difficulties with public
>transportation tomorrow due to the large mass mobilization, and
>possibly in the following days, too.
>
>We apologize to the experienced and militant fellow compatriots from
>the capital. This is a crucial time; there is no other alternative
>and no place for hesitation. United in the noble and humanitarian
>objective which is the release and return of the child and his family
>to their Homeland, where they were born and wish to live, both the
>American and the Cuban peoples will win. June 1, 2000 " JC
> **************
>
>from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>subject: Health and Revolution in Cuba
>X-From_: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Jun 4 2000 Delivered-To:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>From: Luis Martin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: HEALTH AND REVOLUTION IN CUBA
>
>HEALTH AND REVOLUTION IN CUBA
>A reply to counterrevolutionary fabrication and distortion
>
>(Arguments advanced by the counterrevolution in a recent critique of
>my research on health care in Cuba is available upon an email
>request)
>
>Health appears to have been "reasonably good". (1)
> In the years preceding the revolutionary takeover. Various authors
>have stressed the point that the rate of mortality was low and the
>number of physicians and hospital beds per capita was high in Cuba
>(2).
>
> Also, arguments have been advanced trying to prove that the health
>system of Cuba was efficient and progressive and needed little
>reform. However, such assessments based on national averages, present
>a false impression. Any useful analysis of Cuban health hinges not on
>the question of figures for the whole nation, but on how health
>facilities and personnel were DISTRIBUTED.
>
>Health Personnel and Facilities Before the Revolution
>
>From 1899 to 1958 the Cuban people increased their numbers four
>times, while the number of physicians multiplied by five. In 1957 the
>doctor/population ratio was one physician for 998 persons, a figure
>surpassed by only one other Latin American country. (3)
>
>
>Physicians, 1899-1958 (4)
>
>Year Total
>1899 1,223
>1907 1,243
>1919 1,171
>1943 2,589
>1953 6,201
>1957 6,421
>1958 6,286
>
>These services, however, were relatively inaccessible to the
>inhabitants of the rural areas. Medical skills and facilities were
>concentrated in the large cities, while people in the countryside
>were disproportionately consumed by disease.
>
> More than 60% of all physicians in 1958 lived and worked in Havana.
>Thus, Havana province had one physician for every 420 persons, but
>Pinar del Rio's rural population had one for every 2,100. There was
>one doctor for every 2,550 persons living in Oriente province.(5).
>
>Needless to say, the regions with the fewest physicians needed them
>the most. (6)
>
>An idea of the unequal distribution of medical personnel can be
>gained by looking at the problem as it stood in 1958. That year the
>province of Havana, with less than one third of the total population,
>absorbed over two thirds of all the available physicians. Oriente
>province, with 3% more people than Havana, had, on the other hand,
>50% fewer doctors.
>
> Even when doctors practiced outside of Havana province they did so
>primarily in the provincial capitals. It remained palpably evident
>that the country people had little opportunity to see a professional
>for treatment.
>
>In 1962, after a revolutionary drive had begun to provide the
>interior with health services, the situation was still critical,
>which only shows how dismal the conditions must have been in the
>1950's.
>
>Distribution of Physicians by Provincial Capital, 1962
>
>(7)
>Province Pop. of Capital Physicians in Capital
>
>Pinar del Rio 24% 35%
>Havana 50 93
>Matanzas 22 40
>Las Villas 15 25
>Camagiiey 33 49
>Oriente 10 27
>
>
> The reason for such a concentration in the cities was primarily the
>direct consequence of the medical profession's desire to do a good
>business. After all, in the cities, where the largest shares of the
>national income ended up, more people could afford to pay for
>treatment (8).
>
> In other words, medical personnel congregated in the urban areas
>because health was a commodity to be sold. The scope and extent of
>the coverage of medical services, were determined by a commitment to
>profits and not to serving the needs of Cubans.(9)
>
> The trend toward concentrating in the city of Havana is also visible
>among dentists. In 1899 49% of the total were in the capital. Fifty-
>eight years later it was 62% (10).
>
> And the ratio of dentists per person, which in 1899 was one for
>every 3,000, in 1957 amounted to one per 2,224. Nurses also followed
>a similar pattern despite their increase in numbers.
>
>Dental and Nursing personnel, 1899-1957 (11)
>
>Year Dentists Nurses
>1899 354 523
>1907 390 822
>1943 1018 921
>1953 1934 1763
>1957 2100 2876
>
> In 1958 there were eighty-eight hospitals in the country. Only 10
>of these were major public hospitals by US standards. Cuba also had
>one of the highest percentages of hospital beds in the Caribbean,
>with one bed for every three hundred persons. But the distribution
>was irregular and completely inadequate when the density and
>morbidity rates of the population were taken into account. The urban
>areas received preferential treatment. Eighty percent of all beds
>were in the city of Havana (12).
>
> For the entire rural population there were only ten beds in one
>hospital. Moreover, with few exceptions, the hospitals lacked
>internal organization. (13)
>
>
>Number of Hospitals, 1958 (14)
>
>Hospital Number
>
>General Urban 41
>General Rural 1
>Industrial 22
>Special 24
>Total 88
>
>Hospital Beds, 1958
>
>Hospital Number
>
>General* 15,013
>Special 6,767
>Others 3,965
>Total 25,145 (15)
>
>*Includes mutual benefit clinics ("Quintas").
>
> It was a distressing fact that the needs of the people received
>little consideration from those making decisions. The construction of
>hospitals and other health facilities then was "most often the result
>of political rather than technical decisions." (16).
>
> The health sector was a channel to distribute political patronage,
>a useful way of becoming rich. One study has stated on this aspect:
>
>"Often, access to a clinic or a hospital bed could be obtained only
>through the political organization of the town.Services were
>channeled to the rural population through leaders of the party in
>power. Those using the health services and facilities were strangely
>reminded of the source of the benefits, and many were required to
>vote accordingly. Public health positions, like other government
>jobs, also were subject to the patronage system." (17)
>
> Public officials were only concerned with the health of the people
>several weeks before elections, that is, every four years.
>
>=============
>BIBLIOGRAPHY
>(1) Jopse M. Illan, Cuba, Datos Sobre una Economia en Ruinas, Miami:
>AIP,
>1964, p.26
>(2) La Seguridad Social en Cuba, Miami: FORDC, 1965, up. 7-8.
>(3) Theodore Draper, Castroism, Theory and Practice, New York:
>Praeger,
>1965, p. 100.
>(4) "Censuses 1899-1953: Granma (Havana), February 12, 1967, p. 9.
>(5) "Robert Goldston, The Cuban Revolution, New York: Bobbs-Merrill,
>1970,
>p. 58.
>(6) 70% of the medical students graduating in 1955-1956 had to
>migrate
>because they could not find jobs in the capital. In 1956 the Cuban
>Medical
>Association held a symposium to discuss the problem.
>(7) "Carlos Font Pupo, "La salud del pueblo, preocupaci6n basica de
>la
>revolucion," Cuba Socialista (Havana), April 1963, p. 53.
>(8) "There are secondary causes, such as the facilities found in
>urban
>areas. For a thorough consideration of the issue, see "The Urban and
>Rural
>Distribution of Medical Manpower," World Health Organization.
>(9) Charitable and mutual aid associations made a contribution to the
>health of the people in the cities, although often a fee was attached
>to it
>in one form or another.
>(10) 1899 census and Granma (Havana), November 19, 1969, p. 4.
>(11) 1899-1953 censuses and World Health Organization, Second Report
>on the
>World Health Situation, 1957-1960, Geneva, 1963, pp. 121-123.
>(12) Carlos Font Pupo, "Hacia la salud publica socialista," Cuba
>Socialista
>(Havana), July 1965, p. 39.
>(13) Raul de Velasco, "Cuba", World Medical Journal, May 1959, p. 141
>(14) Cuba, Ministerio de Salud Publica, Salud Publica en Cifras,
>Havana,
>1963; El Mundo (Havana), December 3, 1967, pp. 1, 5.
>(15) An official Cuban periodical gives the figure of 32,694 hospital
>beds
>for 1957, that is, almost 7,000 more units than the following year.
>Bohemia
>(Havana), January 2, 1969, p. 29.
>(16) Wyatt MacGafIey and Clifford R. Barnett, Twentieth Century Cuba,
>New
>York: Doubleday, 1965, p. 201.
>(17) Ibid., p. 201
>============
>My gratitude to Dr. Nelson Valdes for making the research material
>herein available.
>Luis Martin Carlos Balin~o Institute June 3, 2000 " JC
>
>
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