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By Francis Earl A. Cueto,
Reporter
Doctors in the Philippines are
turning themselves into nurses to be able to work abroad
immediately, with the United States seen as their preferred
destination. Their departure is said to worsen the
so-called brain drain in the Philippines.
Cuba can help Manila stop the
apparent bleeding, Havana’s top diplomatic official in the
Philippines told The Manila Times during an exclusive roundtable
interview on Thursday.
Cuban Ambassador to Manila Jorge
Rey Jimenez said his country is practically overflowing with doctors
and other medical practitioners, whom Havana could deploy to the
Philippines if the government of President Gloria Arroyo would
welcome them. Manila, however, has not responded to Cuba’s offer
to send them over.
“We have lots of doctors and
medical practitioners. We have offered [them] to the Philippines,
but your government has yet to make its move,” Jimenez said.
Some local health officials and
even nongovernment organizations supposedly have intimated that
Cuban doctors can work with them in several public-health programs
and hospitals.
Jimenez said he understands the
flight of Filipino doctors who want to work overseas as nurses. He
added that the Philippine government might consider taking in Cuban
doctors to replace those local doctors leaving the country. If
Manila does, Jimenez said, the deal need not be strictly medical.
The ambassador disclosed that
17,000 Cuban doctors and dentists, for example, provide medical and
dental services in Venezuela. Caracas, in exchange, supplies Cuba
with 100,000 barrels a day of subsidized oil.
The foreign doctors are said to
have helped bring down maternal and child deaths in oil-rich
Venezuela to only a fifth of their former level.
A fact sheet given by the Cuban
Embassy in Manila to The Manila Times showed that doctor to
population ratio in Cuba is one for every 158. In the Philippines,
the ratio is one for every 10,000 to 26,000 Filipinos. In the United
States, it is said to be one for every 150.
From 2000 to 2003, the
Philippines lost 51,850 nurses. Over 5,000 registered doctors left
from 2001 to 2004. At least 6,000 doctors are studying to be nurses.
Over 50,000 caregivers have been
trained at the government’s Technical Skills and Development
Authority and accredited schools, with half of them already deployed
abroad.
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