Cuban Doctors to Help Patients in South Side Chicago
Street vendor Alain Rivera, 37, holds his 10-month-old nephew in a barber shop in Havana. | Photo: Reuters
Cuba’s infant mortality rate is significantly lower than some of the poorest parts of the United States..
With no solution in sight regarding infant mortalities, residents of Chicago’s South Side, home to numerous predominantly Black neighborhoods, have resorted to mentors from the Cuban Ministry of Public Health for help.
Why? The small socialist island, though it has endured a half-century economic blockade imposed by the United States, has an infant mortality rate (4..3 per 1,000 people) lower than its neighbor to the north (5.7 per 1,000 people), according to the World Health Organization.
In fact, Cuba’s infant mortality rate is significantly lower than some of the poorest parts of the United States. A good example is the neighborhood of Englewood. With an infant mortality rate of 14.5 babies per 1,000, its statistics mirrors that of war-torn Syria.
“Cuba is not a rich country,” said Dr. Jose Armando Arronte-Villamarin, one of the Cuban doctors helping the people of Chicago’s South Side. “(Therefore) we have to develop the human resources, at the primary health care level.”
Even health workers at the prestigious University of Illinois at Chicago are adopting Cuban health surveys during home visits in Englewood.
“Sometimes the answers are in the most unexpected places,” Tossas-Milligan said, adding that “sometimes it’s hard for us to face the reality that, as much as we spend, we have somehow not been successful at keeping our babies alive.”
