PHA-Exchange> New film on Cuban health system by a PHM member

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: TOM FAWTHROP tomfawthrop at gmail.com

  SWIMMING AGAINST THE TIDE
A  Eureka Films production : the Cuban Health system
Produced & directed by Tom Fawthrop a regular participant
in PHM summits.
How is it possible that a poor nation like Cuba, can achieve health
indicators on a par with the world's richer nations?

In several fields of medical research - new vaccines, new therapies, and
ground-breaking anti-cancer agents- this small Caribbean nation is
challenging the pharmaceutical empires of the west.

How is it possible that Cuba has achieved so much with so few resources? And
that one of the world's poorer nations can offer to help the US-the world's
richest-to cope with Hurricane Katrina? Cuba offered to send hundreds of
doctors to New Orleans in 2005.

 At a time when public health systems are in crisis and a tide of
privatisation of healthcare has gripped the globe, this documentary looks in
depth at one health system that is swimming against the currents of
corporate globalization.

>From Havana to Haiti, from Cape Verde to Venezuela, and 68 countries across
the globe lives have been saved and public health systems strengthened  by
Cuban medical missions.

One of the batch of students from the USA studying in Cuba tells us in the
film " They have Cuban doctors in so many countries but you never hear
about." This unreported world is the subject of this film.
 For more information contact and DVDs EurekaCuba at gmail.com


                SWIMMING AGAINST THE TIDE

 47 min video a   Eureka Films production  directed by Tom Fawthrop

 How is it possible that a small Caribbean nation can match and in some
fields surpass western countries in the performance of their health system?
In spite of the US trade embargo and many shortages of medicine,still infant
mortality and longevity are on a par with the best health systems in Europe.


This documentary  traces the development of the new health system from its
beginnings after the 1959 Cuban revolution to the present-day.Cuban doctors
from all fields- primary health care and family doctors, medical researchers
and the island's highly developed capacity for the production of  some of
the world's best vaccines,neurologists and eye-surgeons all tell their
story.

But it is not only Cubans that benefit from a system that provides free and
universal health access for everybody. Around 30,000 health
personnel-doctors,nurses etc are serving in humanitarian missions abroad
covering 68 countries – both long-term medical aid programmes in Haiti,
Mali.Gambiia, Guinea,East Timor,South Africa and the Solomon Islands. These
figures also include emergency aid given to victims of natural diasasters
–Tsunami and earthquakes in Pakistan and Indonesia.

Public health care systems have been generally under siege from the forces
of globalisation.The private sector backed by the World Bank has expanded in
the developing world,leaving qaulity healthcare unaffordable for the vast
marjority.

This is the the story on one of the few nations that has defied the tide of
privatisation and the logic that reduces  health and medicine to just
another commodities to be traded in the market.

 For more information about this documentary please contact :

EurekaCuba at gmail.com

EUREKA FILMS


TOM FAWTHROP
JOURNALIST
ASIA SPECIALIST
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