CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba
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Idiomas
Solidarity
Operation Miracle Medical Brigade in Panama back in Cuba
CUBA, February 3th, 2010. "Today, being here to welcome you has a very special connotation. You arrive here proud of having accomplished your mission, full of stories of happiness and pain. Happiness: for having had the chance to treat thousands of patients, the majority of whom were indigenous, peasants, and low-income people. But you also arrive with the pain of not having concluded other stories of the other thousands of people who also hoped to be saved by this Operation".
These were the welcoming words of the Cuban Deputy Minister of Health, Roberto Gonzalez, to the Cuban medical brigade which accomplished the mission of taking the Operacion Milagro (Miracle Operation) for ophthalmologic rehabilitation to the people of Panama. This brigade returned to the island yesterday afternoon.
On arrival at the Jose Marti International Airport, the sixteen Cuban doctors—who were also being welcomed by Elis Alberto Polanaco, director of the Central Unit of Medical Cooperation, and by other officials from the Ministry of Health—were thanked on behalf of the "Cuban Revolution for their work and the genuine human solidarity which has always characterized them."
Roberto Gonzalez recorded that the idea of putting an end to the Cuban mission in Panama was "a unilateral decision of the Panamanian government."
During almost three years of intense work, the Cuban doctors have given the vision back to almost 50,000 patients; and based on data registered in previous investigations, between 30,000 and 40,000 patients still remained to be treated.
On behalf of her colleagues, Dr. Odalys Gonzalez Peña—head of the Medical Mission in Panama and director of the Omar Torrijos Herrera Ophthalmologic Center—spoke of the "numerous demonstrations of love and gratitude" they had received in Panama, and ratified the Cuban doctors’ position to continue "repaying our debt to humanity, wherever we are assigned."
(Cubaminrex- Granma)