Cuban trained South African Medical Doctors graduate
Issued by the National Department of Health
07 July 2005
Health Minister will give a keynote address at the 1st national graduation ceremony of 17 Cuban trained South African medical doctors as part of the government-to-government agreement between South Africa and Cuba, signed in 1995.
The gala event will be held at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban on Friday, 08 July 2005 at 6pm.
The students are now doing their medical internship at various public hospitals. They are expected to do their community service from January to December next year. As part of their 7-year bursary agreement with the National Department of Health, they will remain in the public service for the next five years, and; they will be deployed by their respective provinces to hospitals to underserved areas.
The students were recruited from previously disadvantaged and rural communities of KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and North West in 1999, and spent six years in Cuba. They studied Spanish and natural sciences in their first year, before doing medical training for five years.
After completing their training in Cuba in July 2003, they returned to South Africa to do their 6th final clinical year of medical training including rotation blocks. They received their training at Medunsa, Unitra, Nelson Mandela School of Medicine and University of Pretoria from January to December 2004. Thereafter, they sat for the National Final Cuban Theoretical Examinations. Seventeen have passed and one will repeat internal medicine.
Those who will graduate are Putuma Neka, Bongani Madikane, Mathemba Madikizela, Khanyisa Makamba, Andiswa Mtyobile and Lizo Ntshobane all from the Eastern Cape. Phindile Mabaso, Lindokuhle Mathenjwa and Samukelisiwe Sibeko all from KZN. Bheki Masango, Thobile Msithini and Esmon Shabalala all from Mpumalanga. Lucas Mosidi, Maalebogo Seipelo, Lesego Tsikwe, Precious Molefakgotla, Godisamang Kegakilwe and Thabo Rampai all from North West.
There are also 33 other medical students from Cuba who came back in July 2004, for their 6th final clinical year of medical training. We are expecting another 50 medical students by the end of this month, also to start their clinical medical training. A total of 403 students are presently in Cuba for medical studies and 20 are doing electro-medical engineering.
South Africa and Cuba also signed for other areas of cooperation such as; health research; health policy and programmes; biotechnology; vaccine production; pharmaceutical development; exchange programmes on health research, specialists and medical technology.

Fidel Castro Says Solidarity Can Win Freedom

Havana, Aug 21 (AIN) Cuban President Fidel Castro said that freedom can only be won through solidarity.

In his closing address at the graduation of 1,610 doctors from the Havana-based Latin American School of Medicine, President Castro underscored the humanism of the first group of graduates from that institution and noted that such a graduation, a dream seven years ago, is today’s proof of the capacity of human beings when they commit themselves to reach the highest goals. “It is prize for those of us who believe that a better world can be achieved,” said the leader.

Fidel Castro recalled that Cuba offered to send a medical contingent to Central America in the wake of the devastation left by hurricane Mitch in 1998. He linked that idea with the creation of the Latin American School of Medicine, designed to progressively replace Cuban doctors serving in various parts of the continent with physicians native to those countries.

President Castro recalled the difficult situation faced by higher education in Cuba before 1959 and how the bloody Fulgencio Batista dictatorship unleashed its repression and closed schools, including the only medical school in the country.

Most graduates were youths from well-to-do families and half of the doctors left the country as part of the brain drain encouraged by the United States, said Fidel Castro, who explained that only 3,000 doctors stayed in Cuba along with a small group of medical professors.

Fidel recalled the first graduation of doctors in post-revolutionary Cuba on November 14, 1965 – when 400 youths concluded their studies. He also referred to efforts of the Revolution aimed at training personnel and developing medical sciences.

He cited the figures on doctors who graduated after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution: 4,907 doctors from 1960 to 1969; 9,410 from 1970-79; 22,490 from 1980-89; 37,841 from 1990 to 1999 and 9,334 from 2000 to 2004 – a total figure of 83,982 physicians, explained Castro, adding that out of that sum, 1,612 were graduates from other countries.

If one adds to that the number of Cuban doctors who will graduate this year, said the president, the figure will go up to 85,887. He said that student enrolment in the 2004-2005 school year reached 28,071 in medicine; 2,758 in dentistry; 19,530 in nursing and 28,400 in medical-related technology.

At present more than 12,000 youths from 83 countries studying medicine in Cuba. Out of these, 1,500 are from South America, 3,244 from Central America, 489 from Mexico and North America, including 65 from the United States and two from Puerto Rico. Some 1,039 students come from Caribbean nations, 777 from Sub-Saharan Africa, 42 from Northern Africa and the Middle East, 61 from Asia and two from Europe.

As for those who graduated on Saturday, the Cuban President explained that 495 are from South America, 771 from Central America, 343 from the Caribbean and one from the United States. He said that some day more US students will come to study in Cuba since in that country there are tens of millions of people who have no guarantee to medical assistance.

In his address, the Cuban President explained Cuba and Venezuela’s joint plans to train medical personnel and said that Latin American and Caribbean youths wishing to study medicine but who lack the resources to do so can apply for scholarships.

Fidel noted that the training of a single doctor in the United States costs at least $300,000, emphasizing the magnitude of Cuba’s contribution to the Third World by its training 12,000 doctors.

Venezuela and Cuba together will be able to contribute $60 billion to the Third World over the next 10 years in terms of the number of doctors trained, said President Castro.

Referring to a proposition made by US President George Bush to contribute $15 billion to the HIV/Aids struggle in Africa, Fidel recalled that such diseases can not be fought from a five-star hotel, but from the villages. He posed the question as to how many professionals trained in wealthy countries are willing to work at villages, forests and mountains?

Finally, Fidel said, those who develop weapons of mass destruction and devastate whole cities, killing hundreds of thousands in minutes, and sentencing hundreds of thousands of people to prolonged agony can not be called humanistic.

Cuban President Fidel Castro (R) and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez talk to media before Chavez's departure at Havana's Jose Marti airport August 23, 2005. Chavez was ending a three-day trip to Cuba where he attended the graduation of 1,610 Cuban-trained doctors from 28 countries. Conservative U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but top U.S. officials denied on August 23, 2005 that any such act was being contemplated -- and noted it would be illegal. (Claudia Daut/Reuters)
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