Guardian Angels in Disaster Zones
By Alan Saldanha
`` I will live my life and practice my art with purity and holiness." - From the Hippocratic oath once sworn by medical doctors.
There was a time when fresh medical graduates used to swear by the Hippocratic oath; some still do. The quote above is just one line from that sacrosanct oath. It embodies what is expected of medical doctors.
Like in other professions, there are good doctors, OK types, not so good ones and even quacks waiting to rip you off. Either that, or you, sometimes, get skinned for your money irrespective of the proficiency level.
But for the sheer implementation the one line of the Hippocratic oath quoted above, there must be many in the Cuban medical profession who adhere to it like a guiding light.
Cuban doctors are the torch-bearers of their profession in disaster zones. Those who know their worth look forward to their presence in disaster zones. And they oblige. It is easier for them to understand the poor for many of them are themselves poor by Western standards.
In the remote mountains of earthquake-ravaged Pakistan, in 2005, they even worked in tents and, at times, carried hurricane lamps. Many trekked over mudslides to reach the isolated communities of the region to deliver medical assistance. Some Pakistanis parents even named their children after the Cuban doctors who helped deliver them.
We, who are from South Asia, understand how meaningful that is.
Cuban doctors work away from the limelight. If Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta of CNN were to give them TV coverage, they would easily be elevated to a ``Guardian Angel" status.
Fortunately, many Cuban doctors were in Haiti when the earthquake struck.
Haiti and Cuba signed a medical cooperation agreement in 1998. Present in Haiti before the earthquake struck were 344 members of the Cuban medical brigade who have been providing primary care, obstetrical services and operations to restore the sight of Haitians with various eye diseases. After the recent earthquake struck, Cuba sent 30 more physicians along with food, medicine, plasma and other items.
They are currently providing emergency medical care across Haiti. They have been treating patients in Haiti for many years. Immediately following the earthquake, these doctors opened up two makeshift clinics in their residences because local hospitals were destroyed. Cuban doctors then moved to reopen the ``Social Security" hospital and started operating on the injured.
After ``Hurricane Katrina," the Cuban government offered to send 1,586 doctors and 25 tons of medical supplies to New Orleans. The administration of George Bush declined the offer. There were people who even questioned the credentials of the Cuban doctors.
For that matter, one wonders whether they would allow them to practice here in a relief and rescue effort if, God forbid, we on the West Coast of Canada, are faced with some similar catastrophe. After all, we do live on an extension of the sensitive ``San Andreas fault."
The writer is publisher and editor of a Surrey, British Columbia biweekly newspaper. He can be contacted at alansdaywatch@gmail.com.