Cuban Eye Program Provides Care For Thousands

HAVANA, Cuba — Jose Gomez bounds around the patio of a sunny vacation cottage near the beach, giggling as his mother gently tosses him a soccer ball.

The energetic two-year-old from El Salvador is one of thousands of poor Latin Americans who have received free eye surgery thanks to "Miracle Mission," an ambitious program started by Cuba in 2004.

"My husband is a fisherman and we could never afford this surgery," said Gomez's mother, Julia, referring to her son's successful treatment for a droopy eyelid. "We've been in Cuba for 15 days and everything has been paid for."

Cuba's eye-care program — funded in part by its close ally Venezuela — has become a huge enterprise, employing hundreds of Cuban health-care workers who have treated a half-million patients over the past three years.

Cuba has staffed medical clinics and other social programs in Venezuela for years, an outgrowth of the tight bond between Castro and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's charismatic socialist leader. In exchange, Venezuela provides Cuba with about 90,000 barrels of oil per day, about half its daily needs.

With a recent, dramatic international expansion, the program has also raised Cuba's profile on the world stage, showcasing Cuban medical expertise while providing badly needed care in poor countries. Cuba has opened clinics and patient screening facilities in 27 nations from Africa and China to the Caribbean and across Latin America.

It is a humanitarian gesture and an important goodwill diplomatic tool for Cuba, which lost its prime political and financial benefactor when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

In what many analysts regard as a U.S. attempt to counter such Venezuelan and Cuban efforts, President Bush last week announced plans to direct millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Latin America to expand health care, teach English and improve housing.

Bush is currently on a weeklong tour of Latin America with stops in Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.

Despite the important oil imports from Venezuela, Dr. Lazaro Vigoa, deputy director of the Cuban program, dismissed reports that the program has become a big moneymaker for the Cuban government.

"It's a big headache for the Cuban government, not a money-maker," said Vigoa, who practices at one of Havana's main hospitals, Ramon Pando Ferrer. "We're doing it for free, so it's not for economic reasons. It's for moral reasons, to help these people who otherwise could not afford this care."

Cuba has long been proud of its health care system, and has sent doctors to countries across the globe for decades as part of an outreach program that resembles the U.S. Peace Corps program.

The eye-care program is the brainchild of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Vigoa said, who stumbled upon the idea after hearing that participants in adult literacy programs in Venezuela had such poor vision they could not see their reading lessons.

While Miracle Mission has taken the partnership to a new, global level, the program's rapid expansion has drawn some criticism. One international press report suggested that the quality of care was being sacrificed in a bid to run up impressive statistics, a charge that Vigoa firmly rebutted.

"We monitor the surgeries to make sure there are no problems," he said, showing a visiting reporter a control room with a bank of television monitors that carry live feeds from the hospital's 34 operating tables. "Our philosophy is first-rate care."

Foreign patients typically receive examinations in their home countries and are then scheduled for surgery in Cuba. Most travel aboard Cuba's national airline, Cubana.

Once in Cuba, they are bused from the airport to one of several hospitals providing the surgeries. Some stay at hotels that have been converted into patient housing, while others stay at Tarara, a seaside resort about 20 miles from Havana.

While some Cubans reportedly resent the red-carpet treatment received by the foreign patients, Vigoa said his hospital operated on more Cubans than foreigners in the past year.

Katia Triana, who lives outside Havana, said Cuban doctors suggested her daughter Katherine's detached retina might be best treated in Chile.

"The trip to Chile cost $7,000 but I didn't pay a cent," she said. "This has been wonderful for my little girl."

With 800 ophthalmologists already trained and hundreds more enrolled, Miracle Mission has become the biggest — and most successful — Cuban health program.

"We've grown rapidly but we're prepared for it," said Dr. Reina Martinez, who runs the Tarara facility. "We have treated patients who have been blind for years. It's very emotional when suddenly they can see again."