PORT AU PRINCE, March 29 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – Haitian President Rene Preval has high hopes about the future of public health in Haiti after signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Cuba and Brazil.
Preval signed the document shortly after Health Ministers Jose Ramon Balaguer (Cuba), Alex Larsen (Haiti) and Jose Gomes (Brazil) did the same and expressed his confidence on the possibilities the MOU.
“In 1998, Cuba began a programme of collaboration with Haiti in the field of health that included two aspects. The first consisted of sending doctors to our country and the second one was aimed at training our professionals in Cuba with the purpose of replacing them as our doctors were graduating,” he said.
According to Preval, the Haitian people highly valued the Cuban doctors’ work: “They were in all towns to provide medical care and services to Haitians.”
The president noted that Cubans have always been very careful to avoid contradictions or competition with local physicians who practice private medicine.
“They have always expressed interest in traveling to faraway regions that Haitian doctors never visited and on one occasion I heard a local resident say that “Cuban doctors were after God”, he added.
He said that Haiti can also count on Brazil’s collaboration and noted that despite a 50-year-old blockade, Cuba “has always been willing to help. So this time, it will use Brazil’s resources and expertise to continue that work.
Preval also noted Brazil’s collaboration after the Jan 12 earthquake that killed 220,000 people, wounded 300,000 and left more than one million Haitians homeless.
Brazil will also train Haitian doctors, create institutions and improve the country’s medical infrastructure, according to Preval. — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
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