"The ‘Henry Reeve’ Contingent can do more than just help the population in the event of a hurricane, flood and other similar natural disasters. Certain epidemics represent real natural and social disasters."
Quotes
"The tens of thousands of specialists in Comprehensive General Medicine, as well as Cuban Nursing graduates and healthcare professionals who are presently on missions abroad, or who have completed them, represent an infinite reserve for the ‘Henry Reeve’ Contingent."
"Graduating as a doctor is like opening a door to a long road leading to the noblest action that a human being can do for others".
"Since the beginning of the Revolution, Cuba has been engaged in training doctors, teachers and other professionals; with a population of less than 12 million inhabitants, today we have more Comprehensive General Medicine specialists than all the doctors in sub-Saharan Africa where the population exceeds 700 million people."
"Laboratories can produce medicines to save lives, which could be something of great social value provided such products are available to all. But laboratories are also manufacturing all kinds of weapons that could put an end to human life."
“Let us go over every discipline, every human and material resource we devote to sports. We must analyze this deeply, apply new ideas, concepts and knowledge. We must distinguish between what is done for the sake of the health of our citizens and what is done for the sake of competing and making this instrument for the wellbeing and health of everyone more accessible”.
"No citizen is discriminated against in Cuba. All citizens are provided with free health services some of which would cost thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in US hospitals; also provided are high education services for the youths -- whether they have a relative abroad or not -- which would also cost hundreds of thousands of dollars".
"Venezuela has the potential to become a model of socialist development with the resources formerly extracted by the multinationals from its rich nature and the efforts of it manual and intellectual workers. No foreign power shall determine its future. The people are the masters of their destiny and they march on to attain the highest levels of education, culture, health and full employment."
“Neo-liberalism proscribes any interference by the State, considering it a disturbing element for the economy, as if the domestic order, the army, health, education, culture, science, the courts, the judges, and many other activities could exist without the State and its laws.”
"Cuba shall continue to cooperate with the healthcare, education and social development programs of the fraternal peoples that despite obstacles, advances and setbacks will be increasingly free and unbeatable."
“On the other hand, I can’t help but think of a world where over one-third of the population have no access to medical care or the basic medicines required to ensure health. And this situation will be aggravated as climate change, and water and food shortage worsen in a globalized world where the population grows, the forests disappear, the arable land decreases, the air is more polluted, and the human species inhabiting it –which emerged less than 200 thousand years back, that is, 3.5 billion years after the first forms of life on the planet—is running the real risk of annihilation.”
"The most important thing about the Olympic movement is the conception of sport as a instrument for education, health and friendship among peoples; a real antidote for vices such as drugs, smoking, abusing alcoholic beverages and the acts of violence that so affect human society".