Information from the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba
The government of the Republic of Ecuador has communicated their decision to terminate and not renew their six agreements signed with the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba.
Cuba’s medical cooperation in Ecuador began in 1992. In June of 2006, a cooperation agreement was signed to begin “Operation Miracle” with the participation of 153 collaborators. This programme saw 168,543 surgeries performed, of these 4,609 were for cataracts and 118,575 for pterigium.
In January of 2009, on the occasion of the official visit of then-President Rafael Correa Delgado, the Cooperation Framework Agreement in health matters was signed by the two governments.
On 11 June of that same year, the Inter-Institutional Cooperation Agreement was signed by then-Vice President of Ecuador Lenín Moreno Garcés and the Minister of Public Health of Cuba to carry out the psychological/social and clinical genetic studies for disabled persons, known as the Manuela Espejo Mission of Solidarity. That programme looked after 825,576 persons; of these 35,257 were visits with neurophysiological and otorhinolaryngological specialists and, 21,062 persons underwent clinical genetic tests.
In 2013, the agreement with the Ecuadorian Social Security Institution (IESS in its Spanish-language abbreviation) was signed whereby 293 Cuban physicians from a number of different specialties provided medical care at 52 of this Institute’s units.
Cuba has provided help in emergency and disaster situations in Ecuador: in 1986 due to intense rainfall, in 2001 due to the dengue epidemic, and for the victims of the earthquake of 16 April 2016.
From the start of the medical collaboration programme in Ecuador right up to the present, a total of 3,565 Cuban health professionals have provided their services: there have been 6,749,666 doctors’ visits, 212,360 surgeries, 3,548 babies delivered and 100,084 doses of vaccines administered.
At all times Cuban health professionals have strictly undertaken the jobs entrusted to them by the Ecuadorian health system in rigorous fulfillment of the terms of the agreements signed.
The recent campaigns of the government of the United States to discredit and sabotage the international cooperation programmes which Cuba provides in the area of health in dozens of countries cannot cast any shadow over those facts showing the altruistic spirit and solidarity of the efforts of Cuban collaborators.
Currently, the medical brigade in Ecuador is made up of 382 collaborators distributed throughout 23 of the 24 provinces in that country.
The Cuban collaborators will return home after having effectuated their meritorious contributions for the noble purpose of ensuring medical care for the Ecuadorian population, in accordance with the principle of universal health coverage promoted by the World Health Organization. Cuban professionals cover specialties that are deficient in the Ecuadorian system, as over 400,000 health professionals have voluntarily done since 1963 in 164 countries.
The Ministry of Public Health of Cuba ratifies the desire to continue providing collaboration to this sister nation: such collaboration ceases to exist now as the result of a decision made by the Ecuadorian government.
The peoples of Our America and the rest of the world know that they can always count on the humanist solidarity of Cuban professionals.
(Cubaminrex)