Editor's Note: The services of Cuban doctors in Venezuela and across the globe are well known as they provide medical care to hundreds of thousands of people for very low pay and live with minimal creature comforts. Many Venezuelan doctors who attended expensive medical schools in the U.S. and Europe accuse the Cubans of practicing poor quality medical services and commonly declare, "they don't know what they are doing". But more and more, young Venezuelan doctors are being trained in medical practice modeled after the Cuban system.

It may be that many doctors in the west feel threatened by these Cuban and Venezuelan doctors whose highest rewards are humanistic rather than financial. Perhaps they pose an unintended threat to their western colleagues to both, their inflated incomes and their prestige. Doctors in the U.S. receive and defend extraordinary fees for their work. A doctor making "house calls" no longer exists as it once did. Now the clinics and hospitals have turned into factories with a physician treating 4-5 people at once, running from one exam room to another, having only a few minutes to spend with their clients, primarily diagnosing and writing prescriptions. It's somewhat ironic to hear their disenchantment with this western system in which they find themselves working. Certainly not all, but many western physicians have become technicians more than healers in the capitalist system where their primary reward is money.

- Les Blough in Venezuela

Axis of Logic thanks Dady Chery for translating this news article from French to English by Dady Chery

Haiti-Venezuela-Health:

In Leogane, Venezuelan doctors go to the people
Courtesy of Haiti Press Network – April 14, 2010

To reach as many persons as possible from the Leogane population, Venezuelan doctors are taking a new approach: to go to the people.

According to Mr. Emiliano Melero, the coordinator of the Venezuelan doctors, his colleagues are going to the people instead of waiting for the people to come to them.

“By contrast to other groups of foreign doctors, we visit the dwellings of citizens so that we may assist a greater number of people with their sanitation needs”, Mr. Emiliano Melero informed us.

In fact, since their arrival after January 12th in Haiti, the group of Venezuelan doctors have examined 30,000 persons. Five thousand others have been vaccinated, and 15,000 have already benefited from the support of these South American doctors.

These doctors, who are in the cities of Leogane, Petit-Goave, and Jacmel, belong to a group named “Batallion 51”. They came to this country after the disaster of January 12th with the aim of helping the Haitian population.

In addition to this contigent of doctors, Venezuela, to express its solidarity with our country, has sent a group of public health experts to Haiti.

Haïti-Venezuela-Santé: A Léogâne, les médecins vénézuéliens vont vers la population

Courtesy of Haiti Press Network - 14 avril 2010

En vue d’atteindre le plus de gens possible dans la population léogânaise, les médecins vénézuéliens disent utiliser une nouvelle stratégie : celle d’aller vers les gens.

Selon le coordonnateur des médecins vénézuéliens M. Emiliano Melero, ses collègues vont vers la population au lieu de rester les attendre.

« Contrairement à d’autres troupes de médecins étrangers, nous nous rendons aux demeures des citoyens afin de venir en aide à un plus grand nombre de personnes qui ont des besoins sanitaires », a confié M. Emiliano Melero.

En effet, depuis l’arrivée de la troupe des médecins vénézueliens en Haïti après le 12 janvier, ces derniers ont déjà ausculté 30.000 personnes, 5000 autres ont été vaccinés et 15 .000 personnes ont déjà bénéficié du support des médecins sud-américains.

Ces médecins qui, se trouvent à Léogâne, Petit-Goâve et Jacmel, sont issus d’une troupe baptisée « Bataillons 51 ». Ils sont entrés dans le pays en vue de venir à l’aide à la population haïtienne, à la suite de la catastrophe du 12 janvier.

En outre de ce contingent de médecins, le Venezuela a également envoyé un contingent constitué d’expert en protection sociale en Haïti afin d’exprimer sa solidarité envers le pays

Haiti Press Network via Fouye