Some 155 Venezuelan doctors will conclude their specialty training in Cuba in 2020, a great opportunity for the country considering the strengths of Cuban medical education, according to Yanet Torrealba Cordero, deputy director of the Health Ministry’s Research and Education Directorate, who, noted some key characteristics of the Cuban system, saying, “Their experience in the missions, their experience in the Revolution, in a different system of equity and equality, not mercantilist, but social.”
She is also responsible for the Specialist Training Project within the Comprehensive Cuba-Venezuela Cooperation Agreement, adding that this step means strengthening the system with the required talent, a demand initiated by President Chávez.
“Our brothers in Cuba have been strategic allies for our health network, both in the medical training of General Practitioners (MGI) and these specialists,” she added.
Dr. Fernando González Isla, head of the Cuban Medical Mission in Venezuela, said that in recent years more than 24,000 community doctors have been trained in Venezuela, now working alongside 21,000 Cuban doctors, contributing to the construction of an ideal health care system, imagined by our Comandantes Fidel and Chávez.
The greatest contribution of the Barrio Adentro mission, he said, is the training of human resources with a network of institutions that has created conditions to advance the principles established, with accessibility to services as a basic premise.
Since the beginning of Cuban medical solidarity in Venezuela, more than 140,000 health care professionals have participated, a large portion of the 220,000 total collaborating in a variety of sectors and areas of cooperation
Over the last 55 years, Cuba has completed 600,000 internationalist missions in 164 nations, in which more than 400,000 health workers have participated, many taking on this honorable task on more than one occasion.