[NYTr] Third Anniversary of Operation Milagro Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:34:34 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN) - Jul 9, 2007 http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles Third Anniversary of Operation Milagro By Iris Armas Padrino AIN Special Service Cuba has offered free medical assistance to almost 700,000 patients from 28 Latin American and Caribbean nations over the last three years thanks to Operation Milagro, a free eye surgery program that is part of the Bolivarian Alternative to the Americas, ALBA. The humanitarian project began on July 10, 2004 at the Ramon Pando Ferrer Opthomological Institute, located west of Havana and where the first Venezuelan patients received assistance. Dr. Marcelino Rio Torres, director of the Havana institute, recalled that on July 9 in the late hours of the evening, Cuban President Fidel Castro visited the center and proposed the possibility of kicking off the Milagro Mission Year I, which was put into practice the following day. That year, some 14,000 patients were operated on and in 2005 other institutions were incorporated into the program, such as Havana hospitals Hermanos Ameijeiras and Calixto Garcia. In Milagro Mission Year II, inhabitants from over 20 countries received eye treatment, according to Rio Torres -- who is also the president of the Cuban Opthmological Society. Later, services were provided to people in the provinces of Camaguey, Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba and Matanzas and it was then names Milagro Mission Year III, when the number of people who have been treated has reached 700,000. This project's objective is to operate on some six million people over a ten year period, both in Cuba as well as in opthomological centers in other nations. The hope is to reduce the incidence of blindness as much as possible, said the expert. As part of the initiative, the island has donated close to 40 opthomological centers, set up in Venezuela, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, Panama, Nicaragua, Mali and Haiti in which some 600 Cuban health professionals are currently working -- among them close to 200 opthomologists. According to World Health Organization estimates, there are over 37 million blind people in the world whose condition was preventable, of them over one million are children under 16 years of age. In the Third World the main causes of the blindness are cataracts, glaucoma, and vitamin A deficiency. Since 2004, and up until mid-June, almost 135,000 Cubans have been benefited from Operation Milagro, whose massive program began in western Pinar del Rio province and is now being extended to Havana and Matanzas and gradually to the rest of the provinces. Dr. Rio praised the efforts of the Cuban government for purchasing advanced technology equipment that was given to 24 Cuban institutions involved in the plan. Among this equipment is a type of laser which is used to perform a new technique to counter refractive diseases. At the triumph of the Revolution, Cuba had 118 opthomologists. Only 37 of them remained on the island after the exodus encouraged by the US. Today there are almost 1,000 professionals, and at the end of this school year there will be another 265. Operation Milagro contributes to the search for solutions to one of the many problems confronting humanity -- poor people condemned to live in darkness and uncertainty for decades. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================