[act-ma] 4/09-10 Revolutionary Doctors in Venezuela and Cuba

[omar sierra]

The Consulate of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela cordially invite you
(two presentations, Monday Apr. 9 and April 10):


 *Health Roots Political Economy of Health Seminar Series **presents*
*
*
Revolutionary Doctors
*How Cuba and Venezuela are changing the world's conception of health care*
 *
*
a talk by author
*Steve Brouwer*
*
*
*Mon. Apr. 9.  *
12:30 pm | Kresge 213
Harvard School of Public Health
677 Huntington Ave. Boston

 *Lunch will be provided.*
 *
*
Free and open to the public.  For visitor passes email jacob.bor at gmail.com
Facebook event<http://www.facebook.com/events/414443405248278/?context=create>

 *Organized by the Health Roots Student Group at the Harvard School of
Public Health


*
*Tuesday, April 10th, 12-1pm*

Boston University School of Medicine

Room L201/203

72 E Concord St, Boston, MA 02118

 Lunch will be provided.
Info: Angelam at bu.edu





 *About: *Drawing on long-term participant observations as well as in-depth
research, author and journalist Steve Brouwer tells the story of the
innovative and inspirational health care programs pioneered in Cuba and
being adapted to the needs of Venezuela today. Unlike the for-profit system
of health care in the United States, the Cuban and Venezuelan models aim to
provide free care for the entire population, particularly in poor rural and
urban areas. For nearly a decade, thousands of Cuban medical personnel have
focused on delivering primary, secondary, and preventive care while at the
same time training the Venezuelan doctors who will one day replace them.
These new physicians are receiving a thorough medical education while
continuing to live in and serve their own communities; many of them hope to
one day join the ranks of Cuba’s international medical brigades that are
spreading revolutionary approaches to health care in many parts of the
world. These models are not without their challenges, however, and Brouwer
gives a nuanced account of how Venezuela and Cuba are fending off
capitalist and imperialist influences that are openly hostile to any
alternatives to profit-driven, market-based health care.

*

What a terrific book! I have been researching Cuban medical
internationalism for several years, and found Steve Brouwer’s book an
excellent, insightful first-person account of how Cuban medical cooperation
(and not aid!) is changing the face of the developing world.

—John Kirk, Professor of Latin American Studies, Dalhousie University,
Canada; author, Cuban Medical Internationalism: Origins, Evolution, and
Goals

The Cuban medical education model, so eloquently described in this book,
has not merely transformed health care in much of Central and South
America. It has shown doctors and medical students who work in the unjust
and dysfunctional U.S. health care system that another world is possible.

—Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH; professor of public health, CUNY; visiting
professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School

Venezuela and Cuba clearly show that the basic human right of access to
medical and health care in time of need is not dependent on the level of
economic development. Venezuela and Cuba are not rich countries yet, and in
spite of this, health care reaches the majority of their populations. They
should be considered points of reference for poor countries that want to
break with the underdevelopment of health. This book is a rigorous and
balanced account of how they did it.

—Vicente Navarro, MD, PhD; professor of health policy, The Bloomberg School
of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University; editor-in-chief, International
Journal of Health Services

Revolutionary Doctors tells the story of Cuba’s extraordinary medical
personnel who leave their homes and families to support radical struggles
for health care abroad. And it shows how this struggle is taken up in
places like Venezuela, where poor communities are organizing to provide
health care from the ground up. This is a story that deserves to be known.

—Sujatha Fernandes, assistant professor of sociology, Queens College and
CUNY Graduate Center; author,Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban Social Movements
in Chávez’s Venezuela

Steve Brouwer is one of the nation’s best front-line reporters from the
ongoing class war.

—Barbara Ehrenreich, author, Nickel and Dimed
*
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