Vehicles have been adapted to give an effective response to the current health situation.

Great solutions are born out of necessity, says popular wisdom. The COVID-19 has, then, put us the highest ceiling to exercise creativity and ingenuity that daily save Cubans from countless difficulties.

We have a recent example, in Las Tunas, in the work undertaken in the CARDINAL Provincial Transport Company, in whose units two buses and several vehicles were transformed into means for the transfer of positive patients who require specialized care and oxygen supply.

Yoania Diéguez Peña, head of the Provincial Coordinating Board, thanks and highlights the value of this work that has allowed greater efficiency in assisting patients in need of care at the Guillermo Domínguez Hospital in Puerto Padre.

"It has been very valuable to us, because of the demand for transfers to this health center; therefore, it has contributed to reducing the waiting time of patients and, consequently, has resulted in better and quick care," she explains to 26.

A WORKSHOP TO LAUNCH INVENTIVE

José Agustín Díaz García, head of the workshop at the Logistics and Freight base business unit of the Provincial Transportation Company, knows the efforts behind this result, and to maintain the vitality of the vehicle fleet of the Medical Emergency System (SIUM).
Together with welders, turners, mechanics, electricians ... a whole entrepreneurial group, this man from Las Tunas has shed hours of sweat to find solutions to ambulance breakdowns and create what is necessary to adapt other vehicles that today help to give an effective response to the current health situation.

"Besides the adaptations made in two buses, we have prepared means of various companies such as the Telecommunication, Stainless Steel, and Universal Warehouses companies, to which we have assembled stretcher systems and supports for oxygen cylinders. It is a job that demands a trade, and for which we have the support of resources from other entities that, in this way, also collaborate with our work, with Public Health, and society, in general,” he comments with satisfaction, in the middle of the daily task.

Each job involves care and is carried out with the greatest possible delicacy so that the car can, after ending the current contingency, recover its functions without damage, also, to aesthetics. This last detail may seem minor, but it means a lot to the carriers.
Someday, the pandemic will end and it will be very good to have the equipment in the best possible state. The effort of the workers in this workshop is also appreciated by the ambulance crews, so essential in the current circumstances, most of them worn out by time and exploitation, and with a coming and going that today exceeds the daily lives of others times and whose "pains" calm, in turn, the repairers of CARDINAL Las Tunas.

AT THE WHEEL, LIFE IS ALSO DEFENDED

Angel Rosalbal Mompié has an entire existence as a driver; for this man, the road is an almost natural space that he dominates after having commanded buses, harrows, and even battle tanks. The COVID-19 changed his dynamics, and the bus he pilots was one of those that underwent the vital transformation to transfer SARS-CoV-2 positive patients.

"We work 24 hours, in the company of the Red Cross and paramedics. All the time with prevention at the wheel, and taking care to avoid potholes so as not to affect those who are in serious condition or feeling very bad," says Ángel, who fulfilled an internationalist mission in Angola and says that the current task exceeds that.

"It is more dangerous than in war because it is a disease that you don’t know who is infected; when you can get infected, and even more so now that we are exposed. One feels some fear; however, as long as the COVID-19 is present, we will be here, firm and working until we see that this virus has left us alone."

Such satisfaction is shared by José Antonio Labrada, another driver who never imagined that his bus would undergo such a metamorphosis. And there he is, in his usual position, for the good of his compatriots and of the collective health.

"We are paying great attention to the well-being of the population; it is a very useful and necessary task today. Being exposed, we take all measures not to get infected."

The crews of these vehicles, now arranged as medical transport, are made up, also by the health workers and members of the Cuban Red Cross, who challenge the disease.

Michel Flanaguín Carralero, head of the Specialized Group for Operations and Relief, highlights that 22 volunteers serve there as assistants for the health personnel and that work satisfies them, as it is another way to combat the coronavirus and exercise the humanitarian aid that distinguishes that institution.

Each of the protagonists in this story has sacrificed hours of rest to reach out to those in need. They are there where, today, they are most useful to their compatriots and Cuba. That's being good!