Cuban doctors assist
victims of Hurricane
Felix in Nicaragua
Cuban doctors stationed
in this city in
northeastern Nicaragua
are continuing to attend
to victims of Hurricane
Felix, in the midst of
the devastation left in
its wake, including the
destruction of the local
hospital.
The precarious
conditions have not
affected the
determination of the
health professionals,
who are providing care
for patients in
improvised operating
rooms and wards set up
in the local offices of
the National
Technological Institute.
Doctor Osmar Martínez,
coordinator of the Cuban
medical brigade in the
Autonomous Region of the
North Atlantic (RAAN),
told Prensa Latina that
since the onslaught of
the hurricane in the
early hours of this past
Tuesday, they have
attended to more than
300 people.
"We have performed
Cesareans here,"
Martínez explained,
indicating one of the
institute’s classrooms,
which has been turned
into a maternity ward,
where at that moment, a
Nicaraguan radiologist
was doing an ultrasound
for a pregnant woman
from the Miskito
community.
Along with Cuban doctors
and local healthcare
personnel, those working
shoulder-to-shoulder
with them in these
improvised facilities
include 20 young
Nicaraguans in their
fifth year of medical
school at the Latin
American School of
Medicine (ELAM, in
Cuba).
The group is part of the
59 students who in the
weeks previous to the
disaster had been
carrying out community
work in remote areas of
Nicaragua under the
supervision of
instructors in the Cuban
medical brigade.
According to preliminary
estimates, the hurricane
that hit Nicaragua’s
northeastern coast as a
Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson
scale (maximum) killed
more than 40 people,
destroyed some 10,000
homes and affected
50,000 people, leaving
many homeless.
"We were also hit," Dr.
Martínez commented
half-jokingly, noting
that Felix’s 260-kph
winds destroyed the roof
of the house where the
brigade has been staying
at the Institute since
they arrived on April
25. But he added that
despite the adversities,
the morale of the
doctors working in
Puerto Cabezas was high,
and had received a boost
of encouragement via
telephone calls from the
Cuban Ministry of
Foreign Relations and
the Council of State.
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