UBA now has almost 1,100 more
doctors than before the Revolu
lution. ;

Which may sound a little like what
else is new, since- Cuba, presumably,
had nowhere else to go but up in the
eight years since 1959. Surely there
would not be fewer doctors.

But the fact is that there could have
been, had not Cuba placed so much
stress on training doctors and on its
health program generally. Because im-
mediately following the triumph of the
Revolution, a lot of doctors left Cuba,
disoriented or lured by blandishments
from the United States.

Of Cuba’s 6,286 doctors when the
Revolution took power, no fewer than
2,100 left the country. Thus the Revo-
lution has since replaced those who
left plus that extra 1,100, making a
total of 3,200 new doctors. No small
feat for a country Cuba’s-size.

But that’s only one side of the story.
Not only are there more doctors;
they’re at work in many more places
serving many more Cubans than be-
fore the Revolution.

To wit: When the Batista dictator-
ship was ousted, 65 percent of Cuba’s
doctors were concentrated in the Hav-
ana region. This meant an absolute
lack of medical assistance for large
numbers of people living in the. coun-
tryside. Of course, thére was also not
one single rural hospital in Cuba at
that time.

Now there are 46 rural hospitals
Scattered throughout Cuba’s country-
side. And with doctors to man them,
because the old-style habit of concen-
trating most of the doctors in Havana

has been done away with. Havana still .

has enough doctors, but now so does
the rest of the country.

Construction of hospitals in Cuba is
yet another of the island’s amazing
achievements. In the past two years,
their number has risen from 144 to 162
(most of them in rural areas). The num-
ber of hospital beds in the past two
years has jumped by nearly 4,000,

China: at start of 7 968

~ Cuban

health —

story

medical teaching program which went

making a total of 42,337, again with
1,288 in rural areas. —

The overall hospital-bed increase
has nearly doubled the pre-1959 figure
of 22,080. In addition, Cuba now has
202 polyclinics, open to anyone for
free medical consultation and treat-
ment. There are another 3,600 hospital
beds in several other medical centres,
making a grand total of 45,900.

One of the most impressive of
Cuba’s new hospitals is the Lenin Hos-
pital in the city of Holguin, in the
northern part of Cuba’s easternmost
Oriente province. This was opened ‘to
the public in January, 1966, and since
then has never looked back. Although
10 other hospital have also been built

in northern Oriente — virtually hospi- °

tal-less before—the Lenin still han-
dies the greatest number of the area’s
patients.

And its 1,200 beds and 22 depart-
ments make it well-equipped to do a
first rate job. When we visited the
Lenin in May of last year, we saw, for
example, among its other late-model
equipment, one of the most modern
cobalt bombs in all of Latin America.

Since its opening it has treated
337,184 persons in outpatient and em-
ergency services, has _ hospitalized

25,384 more and has performed 6,989
operations. The biggest hospital in
Cuba, the Lenin averages 30,000 pa-
tients a month.

In addition, the Lenin now has a

into effect last year, with 24 students
from the University of Oriente and 10
from Havana University. Backing this
up, the hospital also has schools at-
tached to it for training in general
nursing, obstetrical nursing, X-ray
technology and laboratory procedures.

No wonder it won the emulation
competition with the National Hospi-
tal and the Oriente Provincial Hospi-
tal.

The hospital is a joint Cuban-Soviet
effort. The Cubans built it while the
Soviet Union donated most of its equip-
ment and instruments. When the hos-
pital opened (it was actually inaugu-

rated Nov. 7, 1965, to honor the 48th ©

anniversary of the Russian Revolu-
tion) it had 70 Cuban physicians and
17 Soviet specialists (now 14).

The Soviet Union also supplied spe-
cialists in many fields to help out as
long as necessary. Last year the Soviet
Union donated additional equipment
and instruments.

But the Cuban health story has many
other aspects. One of these is that
Cuba’s mortality rate has dropped
from 13 deaths per thousand inhabit-
ants before the Revolution to 6.8 to-

day. When Cuban Premier Fidel Castro

outlined these figures in his speech
Jan. 2, 1967, on the eighth anniversary
of the Revolution, he said he under-
stood this was a lower rate than that
of Canada. (According to the Canada

Year Book, the Canadian rate was!

eight per thousand in 1959.)

Fidel also mentioned statistics fot
children dying in their first year. Be
fore the Revolution, he said, the figure
was 60 per thousand, but now it is 37.
Comparing this to other Latin Ameri

can countries, he noted that Costa
Rica’s rate was 77.6 per thousand,
Argentina’s was 61 and Chile’s was 111
— three times as high as Cuba’s pre
sent rate.

But one of Cuba’s most notable
achievements in the health field is the
well-known fact that polyomyelitis: has
been eliminated from the island.

Speaking on this point to a meeting of |

the United Nations Economic Com:
mission for Latin America, Cuba Min-

ister Charles Rafael Rodriguez noted

that in 1964, anti-polio vaccine was
administered to 2,450,000 Cuban chil-
dren under 14 years of age. In 1966 it
was administered to 1,407,000 children
under six years of age. Not one case of
polio was reported last year. In addi-
tion, Rafael Rodriguez stated, Cuba
vaccinates half a million children an-
nually against various other diseases.
Which, he added, explains why the
infant mortality rate in Cuba is de-
creasing.
To carry out such large-scale vac-

cinations, Cuba’s mass organizations ,.
have been mobilized, in particular the l

Cuban Women’s Federation and the
neighborhood Committees for the De-
fense of the Revolution, to establish @
system of mass vaccination of chil-
dren.

Cuba’s work in public health im-
presses any visitor to the island. A re-
cent one was Dr. Albert Sabin, who
came to.Cuba last December to check
up on the methods used for vaccinat-

ing Cuban children with the. Sabin-:

Shumakov anti-polio vaccine.
Interviewed by Radio Havana Cuba,

he had high praise forthe mass meth- ;

ods and their results. Which is impres-
sive tribute indeed. And Cuba’s public
health program deserves just that.

CIA interference
in Latin America

SES scanty New Year re-
ports were published in

China on what had been
accomplished in that country in
the past year.

Peking papers front-paged an-
nouncements on the over-fulfil-
ment of plans for the publication
of works of Mao Tse-tung, on
the output of several million
gramaphone records of separate
works and quotations of Mao
Tse-tung, and of songs written
to the same quotations.

The Hsinhua news agency re-

ported on the launching in

Shanghai of the “production” of
big-size color _ plastic-coated
portraits of Chairman Mao.
“This is a fresh success,” the
news agency sums up.

A review of the results for
the year, circulated by the Hsin-
hua agency, notably says: “The
total of printed photos of Chair-
man Mao Tse-tung reached 300
million, and badges with images
of Chairman Mao Tse-tung and
extracts from Chairman Mao’s
works, 1,200 million.”

All the New Year issues of
the paper printed a joint direc-
tive article of the Jenmin jihpao,
Hungchi, and Chiefangchium pao,
in which the tasks for 1968 are
set. The article proposes the
“purging and regulation of party
organizations.” Everyone who
disagrees with Mao Tse-tung and

his group -or does not display
sufficient zeal in idolizing Mao
should be subjected to a purge.
The places of such people in the
party should be taken by acti-
vists of the “cultural revolution,”
by the Red Guards and “rebels.”

The article stresses that “the
finest, front-rank elements
which have manifested them-
selves in the course of the great
cultural revolution should be
admitted to the party.” An “‘ideo-
logical and organizational regu-
lation” of the YCL and other
mass organizations should also
be conducted under the same
principle.

The article goes on to speak
about the economic tasks in most
general expressions. It advances
the proposal of “stimulating
preparations for war.” But the
stimulation of production, as~is
pointed out in the article, must
in no way take the form of ma-
terial encouragement. The article
speaks of the need of “sternly
criticizing and rebuffing the
black craze of economism,” i.e.,
to oppose any demands for im-
provement of the ‘life of the
masses.

The task is set before the
armed forces of “rendering as-
sistance still better to industrial
and agricultural production, to
still better effect military con-
trol and conduct military and

political training of the working
people.”

The Peking and provincial
Papers continue, day after day,
to underline the dominating role
of the armed forces in the im-
plementation of the “cultural
revolution” and in the whole
life of the country. Jenmin jjih-
pao and Peiping jihpao write
about the “growth of conscious-
ness of the workers of Peking”
under the influence of the arm-
ed forces. Items, printed in these
papers, speak about the active
participation of army units in
the setting up of so-called ‘‘revo-
lutionary committees’ at enter-
prises in the capital.

For nearly two weeks, sub-
scribers did not receive the
newspaper, Hupei jihpao. The
first issue (December 25) to be
received after the interruption
casts some light on the events
taking place in Wuhan, a major
industrial city in Central China.
“Our paper,” an announcement
of the editorial board Says, ‘was
illegally and forcibly closed
from the 12th to the 24th of
December by a part of the de-
ceived peasants in the adminis-
tration of Paho, in the district
of Hsishui, who are under the
control of the worst elements.”
There are also reports from
other parts of China about a
tense situation.

By VITALY LEVIN

EW FACTS confirm the un-
ending interference of the
U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency in the affairs of the
Latin American trade unions.
The Brazilian press has been
stormily discussing exposures of
such interference in the affairs
of Brazilian trade unions on the
part of the International Oil and
Chemical Workers Federation,
with its headquarters in the
United States. At the recent
election to the leading trade
union organ of oil and chemical
workers of Sao Paulo, that Fede-
ration, whose connection with
the CIA has long been clear to
everyone, resorted to direct brib-
ery of those who were ready to

serves its purposes.

The U.S. espionage and sub-

version department is paying
special attention to the working
class movement in Latin Ameri-
ca. The CIA is doing its dirty
work on the vast continent
through intermediary organiza-
tions, including the AFL-CIO.
There is now every reason to
speak of a_special type of secret
service man in the Latin Ameri-
can trade union movement, the
one that has been trained in the
so-called American Institute for
Free Labor Development. The
Institute was set up five years
ago at the proposal of the son

.of multi-millionaire, Henry Ca-

bot Lodge, and its patrons to-
day are, along with the CIA,
about 60 big American corpora-
tions. The scale of the Institute’s
activities is clear from the fol-
lowing data: it has trained 40,000
agents at short-term courses
and 4,000 at long-term courses.

The splitting, subversive acti-
‘vities of CIA agents in the trade
union movement of Latin Ameri-
ca are part of the policy of neo-
colonialism carried on by the
U.S. monopoly circles. The main
purpose of the
cloak-and-dagger knights is to

undermine the unity of the —

working-class movement both
on a continental scale and with-
in each country, to isolate the
working class from the other
social classes, and with the help
of corrupt trade union leaders to
make the Latin-American factory
and office workers blindly follow
in the wake of the monopolies.
It is clear that the existing
situation requires from the work-
ing class of Latin America spe-
cial vigilance. The call for unity

‘and cementing the ranks of the

working-class movement, for
more vigorous struggle against
the intrigues of the splitters and
other scum who have sold them-
selves to the CIA and its mas-
ter, U.S. monopoly capital, has
been and remains one of the
main slogans of the trade union
movement in Latin America.

present-day.

ae

| JANUARY 26, 1968—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 8

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