Public Health in Holguin, after a year significantly affected by the impossibility of acquiring medicines, equipment and essential medical supplies, establishes priorities and work objectives for 2024. Dr. Julio Yamel Verdecia Reyes, general director of this sector in the province, made a statement in an interview to Radio Angulo digital.
What lines or work strategies will occupy the work of the health sector in Holguín during 2024?
“If there is a ministry that has everything very well organized and protocolized, it is the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap). We have six working objectives that are very well designed. These include tasks that respond to medical assistance itself, to the results of our university, to hygienic-epidemiological issues and to sanitary controls.
“In addition, we have a major objective that is related to economic issues and another one to the contribution and income of our sector. Taking these premises into account, there are prioritized programs. Among them, one that dignifies Cuban Public Health and its results, the improvement of the Family Doctor and Nurse Program, which is the backbone for any work objective, for any task to be accomplished in our sector.
“Without the Basic Health Team (EBS), without the Basic Work Groups (GBT), without our 42 polyclinics, the work of the sector would be impossible. The challenge lies in how we develop good community family medicine, in the permanence of our doctors and nurses, in intersectoriality, because health alone cannot do it. I think we can look forward to a year 2024 with better results”.
Although Holguin province achieved the third best infant mortality rate in Cuba, how much can be done in the territory to improve that indicator?
“The rate of 4.7 is decent. At this time, talking about that figure with a hardened blockade, because of what it has represented in the objective order and the shortages that the sector has had to face, is an achievement. To rank third in the country is a dignifying achievement. Because we are also talking about a 4.7 in Holguin, a province with more than one million inhabitants and which, unlike others, registered almost nine thousand births last year.
“Holguín has conditions to go below four, for that each municipality has to make an effort, the polyclinic has to make an effort, the EBS has to make an effort, the hospitals have to grow greatly. It is necessary to acknowledge the provincial institutions that supported this infant mortality rate.
“First of all to the General University Hospital Vladimir Ilich Lenin, where more than six thousand children were born and concluded with a rate of 2.7. I would like to congratulate them for knowing and having a team committed to continuing to do better. It is worthy to recognize the feat they have just done in the midst of so many difficulties, in the hospital where more children are born in Cuba, that deserves great recognition.
“As we also worthily recognize the work of the Pediatric Hospital Octavio de la Concepción de la Pedraja that gives us every year also luxury indicators, with a regional responsibility in neonatal surgery and that has a team that consolidates and improves with leading teachers and with young people who are part of the team, who assume a higher commitment and do it very well. To the team of each health care municipality and to all the professionals who have to do with such results.
“There are challenges and elements to be modified within the Mother and Child Care Program (PAMI) itself, and this is the case of teenage pregnancy. It is necessary to look for spaces for healthy recreation, cultural enrichment, educational work to continue promoting knowledge to young adolescents on what to do, how to do and when to plan a pregnancy in better conditions. Because what has been proven is that pregnancy at extreme ages competes with morbidity and even with mortality and lethality”.
What challenges does the health sector face in the province of Holguin?
“There are issues to be improved related to the cadre policy, because there are times when we have problems and they are not related to a shortage. They are related to organizational and communication issues. We have to grow more and more in this area. What is certain is that the people have to feel that, together with a good number of people, there is the full satisfaction of the fulfilled duty of this army of white coats.
“And in the midst of so many shortages, more than 66 thousand surgeries were performed, that is to say, our professionals and institutions also grew. The priorities this year will be to recover vital activities and levels of care”.
At a time when professional migration due to different causes has a particular impact on the sector, it is necessary to acknowledge those who remain…
“I must congratulate the greatness of the workers of the sector and our people for trusting us, because without that trust this work would not be possible either. And therefore, the call is to give Holguín good results, so that the family smiles, enjoys, from each baby that arrives to the families to each elderly person that is under our care in a home being seen by a family doctor and nurse or is in a social institution under our care. Huge congratulations to all the workers who, even in difficult conditions, remain in the sector”.
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