Cuba doctor training cuts long overdue

THE downsizing of the Cubasouth Africa doctors’ training programme is long overdue and it should be phased out.

When it was introduced in the 1990s, it was meant only as an interim measure and the billions spent on it could have financed sorely needed medical schools in South Africa.

It is to the credit of those who succeed – they are sent away from their families to learn medicine in Spanish (not spoken in sub-saharan Africa) – as many students fall by the wayside.

What is truly galling is that there was no good reason to send students to Cuba to learn about primary health care. This province led the way in that field decades ago when the Valley Trust at Nyuswa was established.

There was also an excellent community health course at the then University of Natal medical school for many years.

In the 1980s, progressive health professionals developed a full curriculum for primary health care, but it was ignored by the government that came into power in 1994.

The unnecessary reliance on Cuba to train primary health care practitioners, together with the gross mismanagement of the health system, which has led to a reliance on doctors from overseas, are examples of how this supposedly democratic government has failed to recognise, and empower, local skills and talents.

MARY DE HAAS Durban