Haiti situation, a shame - Cuban Foreign Minister

CUBA: The situation that Haiti is experiencing is a shame to humankind, even before the earthquake, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez asserted on Thursday.

In a press conference, the Cuban Minister said the abject poverty originated by colonialism, foreign occupation and plundering of its natural resources are causing the current serious social situation.

It is a responsibility of governments and the United Nations Organization to carry out Haiti’s reconstruction, he said.

He recalled that before the earthquake on January 12, Cuban collaborators had performed 13 million medical consultations, 207,000 surgeries, assisted 107,000 childbirths and visited five million houses of Hatian people, and there were doctors in 127 of the 137 existing communities.

The first and only medical emergency service that was working in in the first hours following the earthquake and even days later was precisely that set in the Cuban doctors’ accomodation.

In a large-scale medical operation, 35,000 patients had been assisted 3,000 surgeries practiced, and more than 10,000 people immunized with vaccines until Thursday early morning, with 17 surgical teams, working 24 hours in 15 hospitals, he reported.

Rodriguez highlighted that Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Poeples of our Americas would focus their work on continuing the emergency assistanse to that nation first and then on restoring the Hatian health system.

Havana, Prensa Latina