Posted on 09/12/2007 1:46:14 AM PDT by neverdem
Cuba has great socialized medicine -- much better than the half-socialized system the United States has, according to Michael Moore and his documentary "Sicko."
"They believe in preventative medicine," Moore says in his movie. "And it seems like there's a doctor on every block."
To prove his point, Moore took some sick 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba. The group, with a camera crew tagging along, was treated at a showcase Havana hospital.
"I asked them to give us the same exact care they give their fellow Cuban citizens. No more, no less. And that's what they did," Moore insists in the movie.
I asked him if he really believes that.
"Oh, I know that's what they did," he told me. "One of the 9/11 rescue workers sneaks out of her hospital room, goes downstairs and pretends to be sick. She said the same exact process took place."
I suggested that was because Cuban authorities send tourists and dignitaries to special clinics.
"They didn't send us there. We went to a number of clinics," he said.
It's an average hospital?
"Yes, they have a clinic in every neighborhood in Cuba. This isn't just me saying this, you know. All the world health organizations have confirmed that if there's one thing they do right in Cuba..."
--snip--
Why would we believe the Cuban government's health statistics?
Cuba claims it has low infant mortality, but doctors tell us that Cuban obstetricians abort a fetus when they think there might be a problem. Dr. Julio Alfonso told us he used to do 70-80 abortions a day. And here's an even more devious way of distorting infant-mortality data: Some doctors tell us that if a baby dies within a few hours of birth, Cuban doctors don't count him or her as ever having lived.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
When you don’t know or understand the value of your own life.
isn’t there a website... therealcuba.com or something like that, which spells out the truth of Cuban medicine for poor Cubans?
Oh yeah, www.therealcuba.com. It’s indispensable, I heard Stossel mention the site on 20/20 last Friday. About time it got some publicity.
A young man who worked for the Currant took his parents back to Cuba to see the family that still lived there out in the boonies. While there, the father had some medical issues and was taken to a rural hospital. The description and pictures of “health care” in the REAL Cuba (not the part created for western do-gooders) was well worth the price of the paper.
I just wish I could locate that article again. I have a couple of cow-orkers who could use some info.
When you dont know or understand the value of your own life.
You don’t have respect for anyone else’s life.
Try spelling it Courant.
I'm a medical transcriptionist. Not sure if they dictate medical reports in Cuba.
But in the U.S., when a doctor does a certain routine procedure many times per day (such as cataract surgery), which perhaps might not vary that much from patient to patient, he might choose to have "canned" or "normal" text saved by the medical transcriptionist, and he would just call out, "Use my normal #1" or something similar, and the transcriptionist would call up that piece of text.
For routine cataract surgery, there might be only a few pieces of information which differ from patient to patient, such as either right or left eye, or the type of lens and the number of diopters. That way, the report is done pretty quickly.
However, the claim of 60 to 80 abortions per day sounds pretty high. But then again, I don't work in Cuba.
An OB/GYN Doc that I do computer work for sees 40 patients a half day with the rest of his time spent delivering. Those 40 patients include consultation time. you have to remember that having Nurses and other Medical Assistants helps the Docs get around a lot faster.
I’m looking forward to watching Stossel go at with Michael Moore on 20/20 this Friday.
MM is so full of it that his eyeballs are brown.
The so called Cuban doctors are no more than what we would consider med techs here in the US.
Also, the facility conditions are abysmal
People who go around orking cows need all the help you can give them, It sounds like it may be illegal too.
bttt
"Ours is the love that dares not speak its name. DON'T JUDGE ME, YOU FASCIST!" ;)
I’m not a big fan of Savage. But I must give him credit. Liberalism IS a mental disorder.
I find that number very difficult to believe. Allowing that the patient is readied by staff for the Doctor's arrival, that would mean in a 12-13 hour day he is spending about ten minutes with each patient.
Thanks for the feedback.
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