TO register a big thank you to Cuban doctors and nurses for their service to health care in Jamaica, people who had their lives or their eyesight saved joined scores of others Tuesday during a gratitude walk from downtown Kingston to Heroes’ Circle.

For the past 50 years Jamaica and Cuba have enjoyed a fruitful relationship in the area of health and medicine under the Jamaica Cuba Medical Cooperation Agreement. Five decades of friendship ended in February after the Jamaican Government discontinued the cuban medicak programme.

One woman, who asked not to be named, told the Jamaica Observer that she loves the Cubans because they played a major role in her still being alive after a road crash threatened to end her life last year.

“I don’t think they should leave. They have been doing great, and I love them. I don’t think they should go. I am one of the individuals who benefited from the Cubans being in Jamaica. Last year about this time I met in an accident where I went unconscious for like two hours. When I got to the hospital, only Cuban doctors and nurses were responsive to the situation,“ she said.

“I am currently living with like 14 pins in my foot. My surgery was done by an orthopaedic surgeon from Cuba, and the nurses who helped me during my recovery were also from Cuba. I am very thankful and grateful for these people. I have been to Cuba first-hand. I know how they are living over there, and even with everything that is happening in the world now, Cubans are still some of the best people in the world,” she shared.

Eighty-two-year-old Alphonso Bailey said he had a serious case of cataracts, but is now able to read comfortably because of the work done on his eyes by the Cubans.

“I was diagnosed with cataracts and I got a letter from my doctor to go to them. When I went to them they didn’t hesitate. This was around three years ago. They registered me, then I did surgery on one eye. In about two months after that surgery, I did the other eye. I can now read with or without the glasses and I am grateful and thankful. I don’t agree with the stance of the Government; they are more than weak,” expressed Bailey.

Rupert Walters, president of the St Catherine Jamaica Cuba Friendship Association, was also a beneficiary of the medical services provided by the Cubans. He, too, believes the Cubans should be allowed to remain in Jamaica, not only because of their contribution to health care, but also to education.

“I happen to know that the best cancer treatment centre in the country was initiated, built, and sustained over the years by the Cubans. That is the treatment centre at St Josephs Hospital, and it is the same place where we had the Cuban eye doctors. That cancer facility has helped literally thousands of Jamaicans who would have died, particularly with prostate cancer, breast cancer, and other cancers. I must tell you, too, that I happen to be one of the persons who benefited from that facility at St Josephs as a prostate cancer patient. I am up and running today and able to speak to you,” he said, while describing the Government of Jamaica as “ungrateful”.

“Our Government could have taken a more principled position and allowed the Cubans to continue to support and give their service to the hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans who basically can’t afford it. The people dem dead like fly now. Already, with the Cuban presence we are discussing the question of children and elderly being on the floor in our hospitals, and we basically choose now at this point in time in the country to send home roughly 300 medical personnel. Given the Jamaican situation and what is happening in the hospitals, it is crazy,” lamented Walters.

University Professor Louis Moyston described Tuesday’s gratitude walk as the planting of the seed of the of democratic descent.

“I am here today to really say thanks to the Cuban people who have had very little, but they give their most. It’s not just about Cuban doctors, it is also about the schools. They built four schools for us – Jose Marti, Garvey Maceo, GC Foster College, and a section of Anchovy High School. I am here because I was one of those in the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Youth Organisation who suggested to the PNP and Michael Manley that we needed to have scholarships to Cuba and the eastern European countries and it went through as a policy.

“Today I have to be here to support the issue. We have been through slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and now we are under a deep imperialism in which our political leaders today are like house slaves. Even the Bible tells you in Revelation 6 that there are four horse riders of the apocalypse. The fourth rider is the pale rider that brings war,” Moyston said.

Women were out in their numbers on Tuesday during a march from downtown Kingston to Heroes’ Circle in a show of gratitude to medical doctors and nurses from Cuba for five decades of service to Jamaica’s health sector. (Photo: Llewellyn Wynter)