HAVANA, Cuba (CMC)— The first group of 11 female nurses left Cuba on Friday for Trinidad and Tobago as part of the efforts to help that Caribbean Community (Caricom) country combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19).

Coordinator of the group, Yaquelín Ramírez Díaz, said that the nurses will work with the professionalism that characterizes Cuban medicine, and will face the pandemic together with the health professionals in Port of Spain.

She said among the objectives of those who leave for this internationalist mission are to return to the country healthy and with their duties fulfilled, as well as to share with the people of Trinidad and Tobago their experiences in confronting the pandemic.

Ramírez Díaz has denounced the campaign of the United States government to discredit the value of Cuban health workers noting that the Cuban medical workers, who are also members of the Henry Reeve International Contingent, were saving lives.

In Trinidad and Tobago they will have to work with patients in the intensive care services, according to Anabel González Miranda, a graduate in nursing and a paediatric intensive care.

She told the Cuban News Agency that is why they have received courses on how COVID-19 behaves, what the necessary protective measures are and the protocol for caring for the sick.

Edina Clara Byfield Cooper, a nurse with 30 years’ experience, said patients are like family, and she hopes that her work in Trinidad and Tobago will meet the expectations that Cuba and the Revolution have placed on it.

Teresa Amarelle Boué, a member of the Political Bureau and secretary general of the Federation of Cuban Women, in her farewell speech, emphasized the opportunities that the Cuban Revolution has given to women.

The ceremony was attended by Marcia Coba Ruiz, Deputy Minister of Public Health, and Ana Teresita González Fraga, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment.