An ounce of prevention worth more than a pound of cure

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cuba is a poor country located in the caribbean with close to 12 million inhabitants. yet the goverment manages to provide free quality healthcare to all an every one of their nationals. they has been successfull for multiple reasons.

  1. they developed the infrastructure to provide access to health care to the most remote rural areas by instituting what they call "el medico de la familia" which translated means "the doctor and nurse team". the government of cuba actually builds several three-level buildings throughout the communities in an effort to guarantee healthcare access. the first floor has a clinic, the second floor has the doctor's house and the third floor has the nurse house. this doctor-nurse team is in charge of at least 250 families. they follow the family's well being from their children to their elders. first they do a community health diagnose with an epidemilogic focus to assess the direction to where their efforts needs to be mainly focused. they are able to collect the data by visiting every family at their homes. the assessment gets done yearly to provide feedback to measure their interventions effectiveness and change or keep the strategies in place. please watch these youtube video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ms8emcowzm&feature=fvw
  2. health care accessibility is another reason why the cubans are successful delivering care to their people. the fact that it is free and that they have the doctor to consult right there at their community is a big plus.
  3. good utilization management. the government allocates the resources where they are really needed
  4. great medical and nursing education. cuba with little resources is able to educate well preprared medical doctors and nurses. see youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nisn6_7vefc&feature=related

if cuba being a poor country with limited resources can take care for free to their people, why can't the us given that we are a big and rich industrilized country? i think we need to invest more efforts in preventative medicine at the microsytem level (primary care level) rather than spending millions of dollars on the management of avoidable chronic deseases. please watch these youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vhagjqnm68

what is your opinion on this matter?

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Cuba's infant mortality rate is one of the worst for countries with socialized or universal healthcare and an overall life expectancy that is lower than several countries that do not have socialized/universal healthcare.

All and all their numbers aren't significantly better than the US (actually the US has a slightly longer life expectancy at birth).

Do you have any links to some more reliable sources for your information than youtube?

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Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply to the thread. I am glad you got a chance to be part of this discussion. I do deeply respect your position and opinion about the Cuban health care system and I am not trying to make you think differently at all but gives you the facts. I am a University of Havana- faculty of Medicine graduate professional and I am glad I had the opportunity to experience both, the capitalist system and the communist or socialist system. I believes that integrating the good side of both systems can profoundly improve patients outcomes and satisfaction. Cuba....., yes, it is a very poor country with minimum resources but the fact is that in Cuba infant mortality rate is considerably better that in the USA. I am not sure where you got the data that justifies your comment and if it is taken from a site that you can totally trust exposing the truth without any type of political or social biases. I really invite you to do more research into the topic for you to clearly make a strong and more credible foundation and on your statements. Show us all the proof that supports your statements. Meanwhile please visit www.WHO.org, www.CIA.gov, www.PAHO.org, www.medicc.org, www.unicef.org, among others genuine and trustful organizations that can proof what I stated in my comment. Once again thanks a lot for taking your time to participate in this discussion. Email me if you would like for me to provide you with more Info. Below there is a link in Spanish that can further clarify what I am talking about. In the event you do not speak Spanish you could use google translate to aid you. Once again thanks a lot for replying to this thread.

Público.es - Cuba tiene la menor mortalidad infantil del mundo en desarrollo, según UNICEF

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Specializes in Psych , Peds ,Nicu.

I checked WHO and CIA figures in both cases Cuba's position was better than USA ,Kids if you are going to make a statement it might be best to check the facts first . In this case it was simply a matter of doing a google search .

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Thanks a lot nicurn. I think it is time for all of us health care professionals to think neutral, out of the box and with an open mind if we really want to contribute and improve our already damaged healthcare system. It's time that we nurses get united and make a difference. Nicurn I know you are one of those professionals. Thanks

luiscarn

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