¨I will go to Cuba without thinking twice. I married a Brazilian woman and I have worked for five years in Mais Médicos Program, but Cuba has Health, Education and Safety guaranteed ; in this situation, I will return, "says Alberto Crespo Pena, one of the 8,500 Cuban professionals who has a mission in Brazil.
There on Itaparica island , on the Atlantic coast of Brazil, located in Todos los Santos bay , about 10 km from the city of Salvador, in the state of Bahia, he banishes the nostalgia of his native Artemisa , while he assist a population of 1,400 poor fishermen, who spent eight months without a doctor before his arrival.
The doctor assist 25 patients per day, Monday through Thursday, 8:00 a.m. at 5:00 pm, being the only stable doctor in that office since 2013. In addition to providing services to people from other communities who were without doctors, "or with Brazilian doctors who went to work the day they wanted and at what time they wanted, hence his assurance that the Brazilian health system will be a total chaos.
"Already the prefeitos and secretaries of Health of the municipalities are meeting, asking please not to take the Cuban doctors away , says the Artemisa´s doctor who has worked as a General Comprehensive Physician , in a doctor´s office since February 3, 2014, similar to the more than 200 Artemisa´s professionals artists, who are also in Brazil.
"They even ask that Jair Messias Bolsonaro, reserve military and Brazilian politician, president-elect of the Republic, who will take office effectively on January 1, 2019, talk to Cuba´s authorities of Cuba to establish a worthy agreement.
"They will miss me , because now they have no hope of when they will see a doctor again. The nearest doctor's office has not had a doctor for six months, and the other nearby also loses a Cuban doctor from Santi Spíritus.
And although he says he lives a tense and desperate situation, because he already has a house with everything and only the luggage to bring will be 40 kg, he is thinking about the patients he leaves behind between uncertainties and despair.
TRANSLATION BY LMMS
