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Cuban experts start medical, dental repairs in Jamaica as part of agreement

Jamaica maintains extensive bilateral relations with neighbouring Cuba. (DTI/Photo Sean Gladwell, UK)

jue. 4 agosto 2011

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KINGSTON, Jamaica: Jamaica’s deteriorating health- and dental-care facilities will get a makeover soon, as biomedical experts from Cuba have begun a massive repair initiative with the country’s Ministry of Health to put hundreds of malfunctioning pieces of equipment back into service. The two-year campaign is part of a biomedical service agreement that the island state closed with the Cuban Medical Service earlier this year.

Like many countries in the Caribbean, Jamaica lacks the dental professionals and equipment to maintain its public dental services properly. According to latest figures from the Pan American Health Organization, a regional division of the World Health Organization, the country has less than 50 dentists enrolled in public service to treat 2.8 million people, a ratio comparable to third world countries like Nigeria. Public dental care services is free for Jamaicans but public health experts estimate that only between 10 to 15 percent of the population is able to access them.

The Cuban experts who arrived last Friday will repair and calibrate over 200 pieces of equipment, starting with surgical, pediatric and dental equipment, the Ministry of Health said. They will also conduct training sessions on maintaining equipment as a first step towards establishing a Ministry-operated maintenance unit.

"Cuba operates similar brands of equipment to those in our public health system,” Minister of Health Rudyard Spencer told the government news agency JIS. “This is the first step in building an elite team at the Ministry of Health to respond expeditiously to the needs of the regions to reduce downtime as a result of equipment failure."

Spencer added that in addition to the agreement, the Ministry is seeking to recruit health-care workers and nurses from Cuba.

 

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