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Henry Reeve Cuban Medical Brigade Returns from Chile.

CUBA, December 1st, 2010.- The Henry Reeve emergency medical brigade returned to Cuba after eight months of intense work in Chile with victims of the February 27 earthquake that ravaged the country. The Henry Reeve brigade was created by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro to provide emergency medical assistance to any nation in need.

Cuban Medical Brigade Head Doctor Juan Carlos Andux speaks on behalf of his colleagues about their arrival to Chile after Michelle Bachelet’s government asked Cuba for medical assistance. That first team was composed of 26 Cuban collaborators, a field hospital and 12 tons of equipment, instruments and medicines. They needed two planes to carry the equipment and medical staff.

“We installed the first hospital that worked after the earthquake, and we were the last ones to leave...We left behind a people who grew to love us and even collected signatures for us not to leave. More than 1,000 people went there to say farewell to us. They cried when we were leaving, and we did as well,” said Andux.

Cuban Health Care Minister Roberto Morales congratulated the Brigade on behalf of the government and Commander in Chief Fidel Castro who closely followed the work of the Cuban collaborators. Morales spoke of the impressive number of people assisted and the services Cuban specialists offered to the Chilean population in two of the affected cities: Rancagua and Chillán.

“The footprint you left behind in Chile goes beyond the medical services: it is the mark of a people, of a Revolution. A people who do not offer their leftovers, but shares what they have instead. That is why we were the first to arrive and the last ones to leave,” said Morales.

Skin-to-Skin

“Rancagua and Chillán are two different scenarios,” these were the first words of Doctor Andux when we started the interview at a small room in the airport, some other doctors also participated in the interview.

The brigade has actually been in two different cities with weather that drops to -6 degrees centigrade and a scorching hot summer. Rancagua is located to the south of Santiago de Chile, closer to the sandy area of the Chilean coast, while Chillán is in the north, less than 100 kilometers from the earthquake’s epicentre.

When the Cuban collaborators arrived in Chile, some stayed and waited for the 12 tons of equipment to be unloaded and the majority of the brigade went through the dark city firstly, and then travelled 450 kilometers north. They arrived in Rancagua very early in the morning and they did not know where to set up the field hospitals.

“We were surprised by what we saw when we got to Rancagua. It seemed like nothing had happened all the buildings seemed intact. As Chile has been a victim of several devastating earthquakes superior to 8 on the Richter scale, they developed an anti-seismic building system, which has allowed them to decrease the effects of such natural phenomenon.” Juan Carlos said that they arrived in Chile expecting to come across with a similar picture to what they had watched on TV when Port-Au-Prince was totally ravaged after the January 12 earthquake.

“That is why we commented during the journey to Rancagua, that no earthquake had struck!” Reality would emerge afterwards. Almost all the care-center structures had been severely damaged. The Regional Hospital of Rancagua lost 300 out of 506 beds. It totally collapsed.

“They placed us by a damaged structure of that building. We realized then that the Chilean authorities did not have any experience in field hospitals. We explained to them that a field hospital could not be placed next to half-destroyed buildings an eight-floor building almost leaning.  The seismic activity had not ended yet, and if another strong aftershock happened the building would collapse and kill us all. They understood right away and placed us in the soccer stadium.”

On March 1, first thing in the morning, they started to set up the field hospital in the sports complex Patricio Meiks. Some feared that the population would not have a good opinion of Cuban doctors working at a soccer stadium. Rancagua is known as “the celestial city” or “the city of the province boss,” referring to the soccerl team O’Higgins, the second most popular team after Santiago de Chile.

The Cuban doctors were very welcomed. That was the first surprise, but not the only one. “Do you happen to know who first came to offer its help? The army. We were surprised to see a general who greeted us gently and his first question was: “How can we help you?” and we had a very good relationship with the army throughout the eight months we spent there. They supported us with everything we needed,” said Andux.

It was very early in the morning and some volunteers from town arrived. “They saw us with the hammers setting up the admissions field hospital, which was the first one we erected to start assisting the patients right away, and they asked us: “When are the doctors coming?.” They couldn’t believe that we were the doctors,” said Doctor Carlos Pérez Díaz, who was head of the field hospital of Rancagua.

They explained the cause of the mistake. The point was that the US aid was accompanied by a detachment of soldiers who set up the US field hospital.

“A lot of people started to come and we immediately offered 24-hour services. Some 400 people, suffering from all sorts of pains, attended the hospital early in the morning. We discovered that they wanted to see what Cuban healthcare was all about, who we were. They had heard of the prestige of the Cuban health system, of its quality, of its detachment, but they wanted to see it with their own eyes,” said Juan Carlos.

Rancagua has some 200,000 inhabitants and he doubts that there was one single person who did not hear about the presence of the Cuban medical staff. “People acknowledged the quality of the services offered in the field hospital, but what really drew their attention was the way we treated them. They would say: “You are skin-to-skin-doctors.” I did not understand it at first. They were talking about the affection, about the way we touched them and listened to their problems. “For a population that suffered from post-traumatic stress, the essential thing was to show them affection, security, understanding and psychological support.”

During the trip, the Cuban collaborators studied the characteristics of the seismic activity in the region and the information available about the earthquake.

“They have earthquakes on average of once every 25 years,” said Andux. In 1939, they experienced a terrible one in Chillan where more than 30,000 people died. In 1960, the Valdivia earthquake, the most intense earthquake ever in the history of humankind of 9.5 degrees in the Richter scale, leaving 2,000 casualties and a million victims. In 1986, another earthquake hit the country, and this one in 2010 is the latest one. We knew that after an intense earthquake, there are always aftershocks, some may be very intense and can be really dangerous. And this is what happened. We experienced 576 aftershocks since we arrived in Chile, and the hardest one occurred on March 11, the same day of the new government’s official inauguration ceremony.”

No one imagined that the Cuban doctors, who had come from an island where seismic activity is rare and not as severe as in Chile, would give useful solutions to face the effects of earthquakes.

“We told the authorities: we need a radio transmitter, with two appliances: one for us and another one for Patricio, the SAMU (Health Care Emergency System) head.” They answered: a radio? Those are obsolete. Nobody uses that here anymore.” But we insisted because when the earthquake and the tsunami hit the country, the cell phone networks and the modern communications system of the whole country collapsed. We did not want to go through such experience. They finally gave in and brought us the radio.”

We would soon prove that we were right. On March 11, the day of the official inauguration ceremony of the new government —Michelle Bachelet presented the Presidential Sash to her successor Sebastian Piñera—, Doctor Andux was performing a complex surgery on a fracture. Then the anaesthetist said: “The patient is convulsing.” And we as well since the tent was shaking. Then, another college said: “We are not convulsing, it’s an aftershock.”

The people around the hospital began to run around filled with panic. “This was a total mess and, of course, the cell phones stopped working right away...Then we listened to a radio: “Field Hospital, field hospital, Are you working?” and I answered: “Yes, we are awaiting the patients.” The next day, all the healthcare system authorities and the SAMU personnel had radios, which were really useful for communications when the aftershocks occurred,” said Andux.

Cubans at the Sun’s Chair

On March 12, the new Health Care Minister of Chile asked Cuba for another field hospital. Three days later, the Cuban staff arrived in Chillán— meaning “Sun’s chair” in their native language— located some 319 km south of Rancagua.

In a report published on March 19, the Chilean magazine Punto y Final reported: “Cuban paramedics’ and doctors’ capacity, as well as the organization and equipment of the field hospital were praised by new Health Care Minister Jaime Mañalich, former director of the luxurious Las Condes Clinic, who— after learning about the well functioning of Rancagua’s field hospital— publicly asked the Cuban government to send another hospital to assist the state of emergency in Chile.”

The Cuban government’s response was immediate. Two days later the second field hospital arrived in Chile equipped with an operating room, an intensive care, a laboratory, an imaging room, etc. There was also a power generator which would automatically activate in case of a power outage so that the hospital would continue working normally. Of course, it also had the “old” and efficient radio system.

Doctor Andux was heading the Cuban brigade in Chillán. He explained that this area was very different, “it is rainier, colder and closer to the disaster.” It has a population of 230,000 inhabitants and their sanitary infrastructure also collapsed. The regional hospital lost 206 beds.

“The great difference with Rancagua is that Chillán had a curfew: people could not be in the streets from 8:00 pm until 6:00 am, so we did not have any patients in that period. At daybreak, some 600 or 700 people were in line outside the hospital. It was really exhausting for the 36 collaborators.”

They also learned why Chillan is called the art region. Many poets, writers, musicians, sculptors, and many famous Chilean artists loved by the Cuban people have been born there: Victor Jara— a singer-songwriter assassinated in the Chilean stadium, who wrote songs like Te Recuerdo, Amanda— and the writer and communist fighter Volodia Teitelboim, as well as left-hand musician Violeta Parra.

Cubans know Violeta Parra and Victor Jara’s songs by heart, and Chileans know Silvio Rodriguez’ and Pablo Milanés’, so they gathered to listen to music and dance. “They wanted to learn how to dance to salsa, and we wanted to dance to La Cueca,” said Doctor Andux. “They were really successful, but we Cubans cannot dance to La Cueca.”

“We even taught free salsa lessons in Rancagua. Our cook would teach them every Tuesday and Thursday in the basketball court, and it ran out of space due to the number of students who wanted to participate.”

Looking into eyes

The most difficult thing was the cold. Chillan’s weather is dry. The air is frozen, the rain cuts like a knife. Cubans slept in tents, almost out in the open. While the southern winter advanced, the Cuban brigade had to find another place affording better shelter from the weather conditions. “In Rancagua, the field hospital was moved to a gym, and we did the same in Chillán,” said Andux. “Rancagua is surrounded by a mountain range. When the weather is rainy, the mountains become frozen and the winter is very hard. The football stadium had become a fridge.”

The Chilean people were the best thing out of all the experience there. “Saying good-bye was really hard for us. We received the support of the solidarity movements, the Chilean leftwing movements, and of the people with political consciousness. They also received letters of recognition from rightwing mayors, Episcopal Church officials, Army officials, cabinet officials of Michelle Bachelet and Sebastián Piñera, people with different political beliefs and journalists. Doctor Andux has a dossier with more than 500 news articles praising the work of the Cuban healthcare brigade. A headline read “White-coat angels.”

The biggest surprise was learning how much the Chilean people knew about Cuba, and the love they had towards Fidel Castro.

“The patients went to the hospital and some remembered the Cuban doctors who had assisted the victims of the Valdivia earthquake in 1960. They said that when the Cuban doctors showed up, they were like gods. The Cuban Revolution had just triumphed and that was the most relevant news in Latin America.” Some others had seen Fidel when he made the tour around Chile with Salvador Allende: “A man told me, proudly: I saw when the caravan passed and I ran and ran. I was 12 years old. Fidel held out his hand to me. It was a heroic moment for me.”

The Cuban brigade was very comfortable to see the way Chileans talked about Cuba and Fidel. They also met some Chileans who lived in exile in Cuba during the Pinochet dictatorship; and also held a very good relationship with the Chilean doctors graduated from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM).

“We were in one of the tents of the field hospital of Chillan when we saw a Chilean doctor coming who was asking for me. Shortly before, that same evening, a seriously ill patient had arrived. We did not know her antecedents. He asked me about the lady and told me: “I studied medicine in Cuba, and I am here to ask you to let me take this lady with me under my care.” “You cannot take her with you, we are taking care of her here,” I replied. “I want to take her because her family has begun a legal process due to the bad medical treatment she had received, and meanwhile, if the worst happens and she passes away, you might bare the blame. I am going to take care of her and assume all responsibilities.” And he took her to his intensive care hospital, where he has worked after graduating from this specialty in Cuba. He did not want our work to be harmed under any circumstances.”

More than one hundred doctors who have graduated from ELAM collaborated with the Cuban brigade in Chile. Punto y Final magazine published some statements by Ulises Gonzalez, a Chilean doctor who majored in Cuba for six and a half years. “There were about 50 Chileans and students from other countries: Jamaica, Congo, the Middle East. I graduated in the year 2007 and came back to Chile. I validated the diploma and I am working in Lo Prado, at a primary assistance office. I came to Rancagua to help the Cuban doctors. What can I say about Cuban’s solidarity? Cubans teach how to live. They are giving the Chilean patients the best care. Cuba always sends the best specialists to help the poor.”

The ELAM-graduated doctors worked at their hospitals from Monday to Friday, but joined the Cuban brigade in the weekend and alternated on call.

“I remember one day when Chilean authorities, from different ideologies, visited the camp. One of the officials asked one of the ELAM doctors where he was born. He answered that he was from Angol, the city where the US field hospital that came to Chile for two months was set up, “And you work there from Monday to Friday? And when do you rest if you are here during the weekend?” The doctor looked at the official and answered: “We stop when the Commander in Chief (Fidel Castro) decides so.”

Epilog

It is impossible to talk about Chile without remembering the earthquake that hit Haiti causing the death of more than 200,000 people. The Cuban Henry Reeve Brigade is also there, as well as the ELAM-graduated doctors, assisting the population who suffered the effects of such a terrible earthquake.

During the preparations of the ceremony to welcome the doctors returning from Chile, Fidel wanted to know every detail and statistics available. He received updates about the brigade in Chile and sensed that the collaborators would like to know about their colleges in Haiti. The Henry Reeve Brigade in Haiti is doing marvellous work, in five Haitian departments, against the effects of the historical poverty this Caribbean country has experienced, the January 12 earthquake, the hurricane that came afterwards and right now against cholera.

Fidel called Doctor Lorenzo Somarriba, head of the Medical Brigade in Haiti, who was travelling to Rabotó, where Cuba takes care of a little hospital. Fidel asked him who he was travelling with in the car. The doctor answered that he was accompanied by the driver and a computer specialist.

Then, Fidel asked Somarriba: “Why isn’t there anyone else to take care of you?” and the doctor replied: “Yes, Commander. We have two Cuban flags. That can give you an idea of how much Haitians love Cubans.” (Cubaminrex – Juventud Rebelde)

 

 

 

 

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