Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Media / News Bites Cuban Doctors in Haiti — Are They There? Can American Media See Them?
Posted by Michael Miner on Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 3:24 PM
"Guantanamo is just 200 miles from Port-au-Prince," notes Jonathan Hansen in Sunday's New York Times. "Even as the United States works to close the prison, it should use the base for humanitarian intervention."
What Hansen didn't note — and I didn't think about when I read his piece — is that if Guantanamo is that close to Haiti's devastated capital, so is Cuba, on whose eastern tip the naval base sits. So why haven't we heard of relief efforts from that country?
I don't know why, but Philadelphia-based writer Dave Lindorff said it isn't because Cuba has sat on its hands. Cuba's sent 30 doctors, Lindorff writes at CommonDreams.org, which describes itself as "one of the top progressive websites," with millions of monthly readers. And Lindorff continues:
"Left unmentioned is the reality that Cuba already had over 400 doctors posted to Haiti to help with the day-to-day health needs of this poorest nation in the Americas, and that those doctors were the first to respond to the disaster, setting up a hospital right next to the main hospital in Port-au-Prince which collapsed in the earthquake.
"Far from 'doing nothing' about the disaster as the right-wing propagandists at Fox-TV were claiming, Cuba has been one of the most effective and critical responders to the crisis, because it had set up a medical infrastructure before the quake, which was able to mobilize quickly and start treating the victims."
Lindorff's piece, which ran Friday, said that only two U.S. media outlets had reported on Cuba's response to the earthquake — Fox News, "which claimed, wrongly, that the Cubans were absent from the list of neighboring Caribbean countries providing aid," and the Christian Science Monitor, which "reported correctly" that Cuba had sent 30 doctors.
"But that’s not a story that the American corporate media want to tell," says Lindorff.
Lindorff is overstating his case. I didn't find a Fox News story that said Cuba didn't show up. I did find, on the Fox News site, this January 13 AP story stating the contrary: "The aid group Doctors Without Borders treated wounded at two hospitals that withstood the quake and set up tent clinics elsewhere to replace its damaged facilities. Cuba, which already had hundreds of doctors in Haiti, treated injured in field hospitals."
And here's a story from a USA Today site about Cuba allowing American planes evacuating earthquake victims from Guantanamo to Miami to cross Cuban air space.
But I'll give you that the Cuban contribution hasn't gotten much attention. My friend Bruce Calder, a professor emeritus of Latin American history at UIC, gave me the heads up of Lindorff's piece, and he commented in e-mail that he'd been thinking it "very strange that, according to the U.S. media, Cuba didn't seem to be involved in the medical aid effort to Haiti (and that those dealing with the disaster hadn't thought of obvious things like evacuating some victims to nearby Cuban hospitals)." After all, everyone else was getting credit — "I even heard New Zealanders interviewed today!"
Comments (12)
Showing 1-12 of 12
lol Cuba already had 300 doctors & has the only perminent hospital there. They sent another 100 or so & have about 450 doctors, including Haitians. They've treated 10,000 patients at last count.
It wasn't hard to find this information. Get of the web you rookie.
like
dislike
oh. Now that I read past the 3rd paragraph.....I'll take my own advice. lol, Dude your intro was too long hehe
And you forget to mention that an aid flight from Cuba did not receive permission from the US Air Force to land at Port-au-Prince airport, so the military forces could land there. We seem to forget that the greatest need is for doctors, nurses, technicians and food, water and medicine. Finally the US started to airdrop supplies. But have the Haitians gotten them yet?????
The problem is with the US, and the US military in particular, which has shown it usurps Washington foreign policy no matter who the president is. It has stopped relief aid from landing in Haiti from a number of agencies no more foreign to Haiti than we are, just like it did in New Orleans under Bush. Since when does the US think Haiti is its to occupy? Our troops have landed with tons of weapons, not logistical specialists, as if Haiti were Iraq and the people did not need the supplies, food and water the US military has blocked. The US military seems to think the Earth belongs to It to do with as it pleases, damn the deaths it causes and allows thru its arrogance. Thanks to Us, the world is worse off.
Have you not read this Fox news report:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/13…
"Cuba, which had evacuated some of its residents as a precaution in case the earthquake triggered a tsunami, has so far not offered any assistance publicly to its devastated island neighbor. "
Typical propaganda news, trying to make other countries look like they only care about themselves, when in fact much of the rescue team in Haiti were looking only for foreigners in Hotels.
Yowza,
Thanks. That's the story I did not find. So on the same day Fox News posted two stories contradicting each other, which I guess is evenhanded journalism. Or maybe the weasel word is "offered." Perhaps Cuba didn't offer assistance, but simply started assisting.
A couple of days ago I prepared preliminary, draft evacuation plans to Cuba,
(much documentation) but people would need to decide Haitian lives, and
Haitian minds, were important enough to do some
things which are hard as engineering and some things
hard politically. I do not believe this is a trivial matter,
it would take a difficult decision and then a short
period of wartime dedication.
From a UK reader:
I suppose that if I was living in the US I might not be aware that there were 100's of Cuban medical professionals already in Haiti offering free health care to the poorest people of the Caribbean (Haiti life expectancy 52 in Cuba 76!) Thanks to the UK media I am aware that Cubans have offered a disproportionate level of support to the people of Haiti even though US military tried to stope them flying in!
Cuban Five send message
to the Haitian people
".... THE Cuban Five, held as political prisoners in the United States for fighting terrorism, have sent a message of encouragement and hope to the Haitian people, devastated by a powerful earthquake.
The message, published on the CubaDebate website, emphasizes that at this tragic and painful time the Haitian people are experiencing, the Five send their condolences to the relatives of the victims of this catastrophe.
"We are sure," the message says, "that the determination of the Haitian people, together with international support, will make the recovery of your country possible. In that work, you will always have the help in solidarity of the Cuban people."
Ramón Labañino, René González, Gerardo Hernández, Fernando González and Antonio Guerrero ended their message with a warm and fraternal embrace for the long-suffering Haitian people....."
from a cuban:
cuban doctors are used as exportation merchandise and at the same time as propaganda merchandise by the cuban dictactorship.
meanwhile cuba health system has become poorer since the 90's. this is part
of the absurd system only we, cubans, deeply know and suffer.
while most of the cuban hospitals lack many services, medicines, cleanliness, doctors, the government send "as modern slaves" doctors anywhere and it is paid for the exportation good, while pays the doctors laughable wages. it can sound hard but for a cuban doctor is more profitable to travel outside to earn some money and buy some goods outside cuba than to stay in cuba. the amount of cubans doctors outside reveals the amount of the economic and social crisis in cuba due to the system. when a cuban doctor arrived to a country in a "mission" his passport is retained and they are extremely controlled by the security guys involved in all the missions. if a cuban doctor defects from a "mission" is punished never to return to cuba, and his family not to travel to visit him outside in 3 years or more.
http://cubadata.blogspot.com/2010/02/seven…
http://blogforcuba.typepad.com/my_weblog/2…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4688117.stm
from a cuban:
the last point is that cuban doctors are not allowed to get the permission to travel outside cuba (that any cuban must have except the governors of course) if they ask for it in a period of more than 5 years.
wonder no more... just read this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/he…
and then try to check more regularly some more reliable news sources (fox? come on, are you not Outfoxed yet?)
to "the cuban" who left comments calling the doctors "modern slaves" .... giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that you are not an ex cuban writing from miami, i'll argue just one little point:
if the cuban doctors felt like that, would they not just ask for asylum in the countries they are sent to....? look:
"A third of Cuba's 75,000 doctors, along with 10,000 other health workers, are currently working in 77 poor countries, including El Salvador, Mali and East Timor. This still leaves one doctor for every 220 people at home, one of the highest ratios in the world, compared with one for every 370 in England."
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/he…
you should be giving praise to the cuban doctors and they should be all over the world!!! the USA for starters and then most of Europe
Michael Moore, in SICKO, was quite humble acknowledging the fact that only Cuba was really able to help his country fellow (while singing the praises of the french system!) but the fact remains - it is the best system in the world and it managed stay that way independent of the crippling economic blockade raged by these very regions
Fair when fair is due... you can complain about something else, I'm sure you'll find something..... there's no McDonald's in Havana... colesterol is low among the population... etc
Latest in Bleader
-
Oscar-nominated short animations: A Wild Life
The year's contenders open Friday at Landmark's Century Centre.
- Feb 9, 2012
-
This Week's Food and Drink Events
Wine dinners, wine making, truffle making, and other food and drink events this week.
- Feb 9, 2012
-
This week in Food & Drink
In this week's Food & Drink: Acadia, Key Ingredient flour, Valentine's Day dining
- Feb 9, 2012
- More »
Author Archives
-
The good old supernatural
Call it magic, but don't call it passe
- Jan 31, 2012
-
What to read after you've stopped drinking
A magazine devoted to life—and lifestyle—for those in recovery
- Jan 26, 2012
-
Give it up for George Kennan
A diary entry recalls a 1992 encounter between George Kennan and a theater company from Milwaukee
- Jan 19, 2012
- More »
