Cuba cements status as medical centre of the Caribbean

Over one million surgeries practiced in Cuba in 2011.

HAVANA, Cuba, Monday June 11, 2012 — Cuban health officials are touting the results of its major overhaul of the sector.

At a recent meeting attended by local government authorities to review the first results of the reorganization of the Cuban healthcare sector, it was revealed that over one million surgeries were carried out in Cuba in 2011.

Authorities have linked this to the healthcare reform, which they say is now marked by higher efficiency and quality in the sector.

During the meeting to evaluate the implementation of the Communist Party guidelines in the health sector, Public Health minister Roberto Morales Morales said that 68 percent of those medical proceedings were major surgeries.

He said explained the large number of operations as part of a concerted effort to shorten the list of patients waiting for surgical procedures.

The minister also revealed the positive performance of the child-mother healthcare programme, which will allowed the Caribbean island to report this year its lowest infant mortality rate ever.

The province of Holguin alone registered an infant mortality rate of 2.7 deaths in every 1000 live births which, Morales said, no other region of the world has achieved.

He also stated that the death of children under the age of one-year-old had also decreased across the country as compared to same period in 2011. Click here to receive free news bulletins via email from Caribbean360. (View sample)