Marieta Cabrera

Trabajadores
May 11, 2004

A lab to encourage life has been the goal throughout these twelve years within this Iberian American Center for the Third Age (Spanish acronym CITED). This is a Cuban institution that counts with a high scientific degree and with a steady work in the research and training of specialists that has allowed a wide range of experiences throughout the whole country.

This task was given by President Fidel Castro in May 7, 1992 during the centre’s opening, when he said that “the most human thing any society could do is to take care of their older people.” All knowledge gathered with this experience will be used in all hospitals of the country, by means of courses, so CITED’s main conference room will be the site for lectures on third age to professionals from every hospital of the country that at the same time will create this service in every region.”

CITED offers health care to Cuban patients as well as patients from other nations. A system for evaluation on every case includes biomedical, psychological, social and functional aspects. These patients need this kind of treatment because they are very vulnerable. They suffer depression and do not easily adapt to the environment. It is a stage where the individual experiences a loss of functions, friends and relatives decease, it is the time for retirement and sometimes it is also the time for isolation from their own family.

This system is formed by a team with a multi discipline group specialized in Gerontology (Spanish acronym EMAG) that is to say a doctor, a psychologist, social worker and a nurse. This group of specialists is present in every health area of the country and takes care of those cases registered by the family doctor and classified by him in a group of risks or state of need. EMAG does not only have a caring goal, but a teaching and research one are also customary, since it offers knowledge to the family doctor and carries out studies within the community.

Located at the Calixto García University Hospital, the health teaching facility is the oldest and with biggest tradition in the country, CITED has carried out until now 420 graduate studies on Gerontology in Communities. CITED has also trained more than 500 Cuban and foreign students on Geriatricians, rehab specialists, psychologists, first aids, social workers and other branches as well.

Nowadays, this center carries out a study on longevity in a Havana’s municipality, as part of the programs the revolution takes ahead to raise people’s life quality, this experience is to slowly expand to the rest of the capital’s municipalities with the goal of researching a wide universe of aspects about this important stage of life.

Cuba with a rate of a present aging percent of 14, 7% which will be 33, 6% in year 2050, is one of the countries having most long-lived people in the region, that is why the government is widely interested on the matter as well as health bodies educating people about these themes and train geriatricians with a high qualification able to cover expectancies on social, economic, ecological, psychological and biological knowledge on 3rd age.