During six decades, the Cuban medical collaboration has spread thousands of white coats throughout the various latitudes. In those places where poverty draws the horizon and social inequality chokes on the development of communities, the wisdom of Health professionals lights with scarce resources and human warmth as a banner.
Puerto Padre, Las Tunas.- Since November 2020, a doctor from Puerto Padre, still wearing a mask and the rest of the corresponding protocols, breathes the air of Mozambique. Dr. José Pérez Pérez, a specialist in Intensive Care, watches over the well-being of others while daily challenges weave the most sublime stories.
“Facing another culture, a different way of living, and facing the concepts of life and death has been very violent for me. The African continent is strong in every way, from the weather to the traditions. The lack of instruction leads the inhabitants to move away from healthy styles and trigger very serious diseases at an early age. It is shocking to observe an 18-year-old person with arterial hypertension or diabetes in severe states. Likewise, maternal patients display conditions with the widest clinical spectrum that can be described.
Africa has been a school, especially for young doctors like me because the lack of resources in public institutions makes work a very intense and demanding task.”
For Cheo or Cheíto, as he is known at the Guillermo Domínguez General Teaching Hospital, the first internationalist mission produced a host of emotions, after the coup unleashed in Bolivia against the presidency of Evo Morales. Circumstances set the next one for Mozambique, where challenges are eternal companions.
“The most impetuous experience was in an air medical transport; that is, I had to travel in a South African air ambulance to a province that is a four-kilometer flight away to rescue a Cuban colleague who was in respiratory failure. Under these critical ventilatory conditions, we transferred the doctor to the capital, Macuto, where she progressed satisfactorily to the procedure. Currently, the woman from Santiago is in Cuba, despite suffering the consequences of the coronavirus, after resorting to ventilation instruments for several days, she has made a full recovery.
Attached to his roots, countless reasons allow him to travel to his loved ones through memories. The longing; however, cannot do too much in the face of obligations. Even so, the doctor confesses that “when I am away from Cuba, I miss a lot my family, the neighborhood, the house, the neighbors, co-workers, the work environment; in short, everything is strange because it is a very different society. There is always the need to think about our country beyond the desired reunion.”
Internet cements a bridge from the Villa Azul (Blue Village) to the coordinates of José, who with a genuine expression of humility, treasures knowledge to give away the next day's wealth.
