Cuban generosity

On Monday we went to see the documentary Salud! which had a screening on UCSB campus. The documentary takes a look at the Cuban health care system and its doctors' humanitarian effort around the world. It's interesting to compare it to the American system, which has been under attack lately, most notably by Michael Moore in his documentary Sicko. The American system has several flaws. It's a "for profit" system which means doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and anyone else making money off of treatment and medicine are more interested in a patient that can pay their bills than one who can't. It seems that most people agree that someone with no money deserves basic treatment as much as someone with a lot of money, which is in contradiction of our basic capitalist society. Not only that, but the medical industry makes money when people are sick and injured and not as much when people are healthy. As a result, there is very little focus on disease prevention. Big business in the United States has always been good at making money off people, and it's no different in the case of health care. The United States having the most expensive health care system in the world is evidence of this.

The antithesis of our system is the Cuban system. Its focus is on equal health care for all with an emphasis on prevention. And they seem to achieve more than us with much less to work with, especially when compared to the poor areas of the United States. Not only that, but Cuba has generously helped other countries that needed assistance with health care. The Cuban doctors have no problem going into a country and living amongst the poorest of the poor to give them medical services. The documentary showed Cuban doctors going into remote areas of Honduras, Venezuela and The Gambia to provide treatment to people who in some cases have never seen a doctor before. One example given is a father in Honduras who traveled every day to a new Cuban-run facility to have his son treated for a minor stomach disease. When the doctor told him that his son didn't need to come every day the father told the doctor that he had lost four other sons to this same disease and he was worried it was going to happen again. He had lost 4 sons to a disease that is easily treated and prevented, but there weren't any doctors in the area and the diseases went untreated.

The Cuban system also focuses on community health. They get to know the community they live in and visit people in their homes. There's actually a relationship between doctor and patient besides basic questions and a quick diagnosis. As the patients feel more comfortable with their doctors they are more likely to listen to them and more likely to report problems earlier when diseases are easily and inexpensively treated. Personally, I hate going to visit doctors in the United States. In my experience, they often give a diagnosis before completely listening to what the problem is. Or they try to categorize you by asking a bunch of uncomfortable seemingly unrelated questions. In the end, I feel like the doctor didn't tell me anything that I couldn't have found out easily by myself, then they prescribe some drug that I probably don't need. I guess my overall feeling is that I typically don't trust my doctor to look out for my best interest and I don't think he knows enough about me personally to make a good judgment anyway.

Why are Cubans so willing to go serve people in other countries? Are they just naturally more charitable than people of other countries? I don't think so, but I think living in a capitalist society doesn't encourage very much charitable work. I'm sure there are a lot of Americans that would love to take a two year break from their office job to go serve people in another country. But if they make that decision how will they pay their mortgage, save for retirement and make sure their kids have enough money to attend the university of their choice? As unchecked corruption continues in the White House and the rich get richer at the cost of the poor getting poorer it's time we had a major change in the United States. A change motivated by love rather than greed.