The Cuban government has been paying Americans through a little known program to study medicine in order to return to the United States and serve underprivileged communities.
by Alan Macleod
Part 3 - Necessity meets invention
Out of necessity, Cuba abandoned oil-thirsty, mechanized agriculture and embraced local, organic gardening, small-scale farming, permaculture, and a more vegan diet. As such, the changes, forced upon the population out of desperation ultimately led to positive changes in diet, industry, and lifestyle. Today, Cubans enjoy a longer life expectancy than Americans. The period is explored in the documentary “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.”
The health industry was also forced to change to a cheaper system of preventative medicine. Health professionals across the country were assigned local neighborhoods and instructed to visit and consult with every resident, nipping problems in the bud before they developed into costly diseases. Thus, teenage obesity was dealt with cheaply through advice on cooking, diet and exercise courses before it could metastasize into extremely expensive heart surgery.
Dr. Sefa-Boakye arrived at the tail end of the Special Period. “We spent six months on diabetes my first year in medical school because authorities were like ‘we CANNOT have a diabetes epidemic here,’ so whatever was needed in the community [to fight the extremely costly lifelong condition], that was a special focus in our training,” she said. To combat Dengue Fever, she noted, local community doctors and students like her made home visits to ensure no one was keeping large stores of water that could be a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
The benefit of this, Albanese says, is that medical authorities have incredibly detailed statistics about health problems in every neighborhood. Every neighborhood has its own local doctors and consultation offices, meaning everyone can see a physician for free, and one who lives within a short walk, too. “No one slips through the cracks,” she says.
This has developed into a much more integral system. “We had to learn about the biological, psychological social determinants of a human being. That meant that you not only had to treat the person by themselves, you had to treat them within [the context of] the community. And within the community was the ability to use medicine like acupuncture, plant-based foods, acupressure and more,” Sefa-Boakye adds.
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