HAVANA: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff thanked Cuba on Monday for contributing thousands of physicians to improve health care in the population of that South American country.
I want to inform that with your work you participate in the strengthening of relations between Cuba and Brazil, Rousseff emphasized while addressing participants in the meeting on the occasion of the second anniversary of the program Mas Medicos (More Doctors).
The president greeted all foreign doctors incorporated to this program, which expanded health care to 63 million people, but acknowledged in particular the work of Cuban professionals in remote, inaccessible communities far from big cities.
I am therefore obliged to refer to the participation of Cubans, who showed, along with their government, solidarity and professionalism and provided absolutely humanized health care, she said.
After two years of hard work the dignitary highlighted the incorporation of Brazilian specialists who occupied the 4,139 jobs offered this year by the Ministry of Health, which she said confirms the positive nature of this plan.
With More Doctors, we managed to bring health professionals to 700 municipalities that lacked doctors, in addition to neighborhoods on the outskirts of large cities and even in state capitals.
At present, we have 18,240 physicians offering their services in 4,058 municipalities and 34 special indigenous districts, and we will soon launch the program More Specialties, with a view to guaranteeing the presence of pediatricians, surgeons, orthopedists and specialists of other branches of Medicine in Brazilian localities.
A total of 11,487 of physicians in the More Doctors program are Cubans, who offer their services in the South American nation thanks to the signing of an agreement between the Pan-American Health Organization and Brazil.
