[NYTr] NY Times' Grudging Coverage of Cuba's Operation Miracle
 
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:09:38 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[Note the dateline is Novembr 16.  It took the Times 4 days to get this
into print. And then with a back-handed headline. - NY Transfer]

The New York Times - Nov 20  2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/world/americas/20havana.html

A Health Systembs bMiraclesb Come With Hidden Costs

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

HAVANA, Nov. 16 b A shiny new tour bus pulled up to the top eye
hospital in Cuba on a sunny day this month and disgorged 47
working-class people from El Salvador, many of whom could barely see
because they had thick cataracts in their eyes.

Among them were Francisca Antonia Guevara, 74, a homemaker from Ciudad
Delgado whose world was a blur. She said she had visited an eye doctor
in her home country but could not pay the $200 needed for artificial
lens implants, much less pay for the surgery.

bAs someone of few resources, I couldnbt afford it,b she said. bWith
the bad economic situation we have there, how are we going to afford
this?b

Cubabs economy is not exactly booming either, yet within two hours Ms.
Guevarabs cataracts were excised and the lenses implanted, with the
Cuban government paying for everything b including air transportation,
housing, food and even the follow-up care.

The government has dubbed the program Operation Miracle, and for the
hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela, Central America and the
Caribbean who have benefited from it since it was started in July 2004,
it is aptly named.

Yet the program is no simple humanitarian effort, and it has not come
without a cost. The campaign against vision loss serves as a poignant
advertisement for the benefits of Cuban socialism, as well as an
ingenious way to export one of the few things the Cuban state-run
economy produces in abundance b doctors.

Cuban doctors abroad receive much better pay than in Cuba, along with
other benefits from the state, like the right to buy a car and get a
relatively luxurious house when they return. As a result, many of the
finest physicians have taken posts abroad.

The doctors and nurses left in Cuba are stretched thin and overworked,
resulting in a decline in the quality of care for Cubans, some doctors
and patients said.

The Cuban authorities say they have treated more than 750,000 people
for eye conditions like cataracts and glaucoma since the program
started.

At the same time, Cuban doctors have set up 37 small eye hospitals in
Latin America, the Caribbean and Mali. Twenty-five of the centers are
in Venezuela and Bolivia, whose leaders have close ties to the Castros.
The hospitals are staffed with more than 70 top-notch eye surgeons from
Cuba and hundreds of other nurses and ophthalmologists.

Dr. Sergio M. Vidal Casali, 84, has worked at the RamC3n Pando Ferrer
Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology for more than 50 years, specializing
in diseases of the retina. He said the heavy flow of foreign patients
through the hospital, combined with the exodus of several physicians to
other countries, had hurt his department. bI donbt like it, really,b he
said. bItbs wonderful for the people, but not for us. It disturbs our
work.b

Dr. Reynaldo Rios Casas, the director of the institute, said the first
days of the program were hectic. Eye surgeons worked in three shifts,
keeping the hospitalbs operating rooms going all day and all night. It
was not uncommon for a single surgeon to perform 40 operations in a
shift.

bIt was really heroic,b he said. bWe were operating day, afternoon and
night.b

Since then, Dr. Rios says his hospital has been training new eye
doctors at an astounding rate of 2,100 this year, half of them
surgeons. The hospitalbs budget has been increased tenfold and its
equipment upgraded. It now has 34 operating theaters with
state-of-the-art equipment, including two outfitted for advanced laser
surgery techniques.

One advantage of the program is that it has given young surgeons a
steady flow of patients on whom to hone their skills. Just this year,
they have performed 394 cornea transplants at the hospital, he noted.
bOur specialists have an incredible amount of experience,b he said.
bWhat specialist in the world can do dozens of cornea transplants a
year?b

In recent years, the program has allowed Cuba to use its doctors as
barter for subsidized Venezuelan oil and to forge closer relations with
other countries in the region, including those, like El Salvador, that
have not been historically close to the Communist regime here.

Of course, the people who have their sight restored could not care less
about the political and economic repercussions of the program. For
them, the offer of free surgery was a dream come true.

Mrs. Guevara, whose husband is a retired construction worker from San
Salvador, said she had given up hope of seeing again. She heard about
the Cuban project on a Mayan radio station. bI never imagined anyone
would help me the way they have helped me,b she said as she waited for
surgery. bI thought I was going to end up blind.b

Near her in the waiting room was Reina LC3pez, 58, of San Vicente, El
Salvador, who has not been able to see for 13 years because of
cataracts. Her daughter, Adilia Reyes, 33, said she had cared for her
mother since she lost her sight. The family, including four children,
survives on her fatherbs salary of $3 a day, plus whatever fruit can be
sold at a market on Saturdays.

bFor the poor, this is a tremendous benefit,b she said, as she guided
her mother to a presurgery test. bIf it works, webll be so grateful.b

Downstairs in the cafeteria, Manuel AgustC-n Isasi, 33, a professional
fencing coach from Islas Margaritas in Venezuela, was eating a lunch of
pork, rice and beans, able for the first time in years to see his food
with both eyes. Three years ago, he had been whitewashing his home when
he accidentally burned both corneas with a bucket of quicklime. The
accident ended his fencing career.

He had been one of the first to receive a cornea transplant in his left
eye when the program started, he said. Then, in early November, doctors
in Havana replaced the cornea in his right eye. He was unabashed in his
praise for the Cuban government and for President Hugo ChC!vez of
Venezuela.

bI would have remained completely blind,b he said, fixing a reporter
with a swordsmanbs gaze. bVision is half of onebs life.b

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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