50 more Cuban medics coming

ADDITIONAL Cuban medical personnel will be arriving in Trinidad and Tobago by the end of this week.  This was announced by Health Minister John Rahael, who said this batch of 50 Cuban medics (doctors and nurses) will be coming to augment the services provided by their colleagues who are already here and United Nations Volunteer doctors.

The initiative to bring Cuban and UN medics to fill critical vacancies in the health sector was started by Rahael’s predecessor, Colm Imbert.  In March, a team of Health Ministry officials led by Permanent Secretary Hamid O’Brien went to Cuba to recruit additional Cuban medical personnel as well as explore the possibility of TT nationals going to Cuba for specialised surgery, including tissue transplants. During that trip, 29 doctors, 68 nurses and six professionals allied to medicine were interviewed by Ministry officials. Newsday was informed that the Ministry will recruit 24 doctors, 30 intensive care/specialised nurses, ten dentists and ten professionals allied to medicine.  The Cuban medical personnel will be employed on contract for two years, their services are expected to cost approximately $1 million per month and they will be employed over a five-year period starting in May.

Rahael said this batch of Cuban medics will have a greater fluency in English than their colleagues who preceded them. The Minister also indicated that other Cuban doctors will come to TT for short periods of time to perform specialised procedures, such as tissue transplants and cardiac surgery and to train local doctors to perform these procedures.