Doctor Rodrigo Alvarez Cambras, the director of the main orthopedic hospital in Cuba - Frank Pais, in an interview with Prensa Latina, has expressed his sorrow on the death of Fidel Castro and stated that Fidel showed the way that Cuba should go, a way that cannot be reversed.
'The first time I saw Fidel Castro was during Flora hurricane. I remember that the Cauto river was flooded and the Commander did not hesitate to cross it.'
He also recalled that a lady was giving birth on the roof and that Fidel ordered several people to help her.
'After Flora, nobody was left homeless again in Cuba as the result of a tropical cyclone. That is part of Fidel's legacy,' he noted.
Álvarez Cambras is an orthopedic surgeon and general director of the international scientific complex - Frank Pais - located in the Cuban capital.
From the first years of the Revolution, he accompanied the Commander-in-Chief in innumerable tasks such as the founding of the aforementioned hospital, the Cuban Society of Orthopedics and Traumatology and the National Group of Sports Medicine.
Fidel was concerned about vaccines for children, the condition of sick people in hospitals. He was also the one who promoted the construction of the Frank País hospital.
He asked me to build the largest orthopedic center in Latin America in the area currently occupied by the hospital.
'We must develop orthopedics in Cuba,' he said, 'because medicine and science in general are the future of the Revolution.'
Thanks to Fidel, the country began to experience health tourism and several presidents and arts' personalities have undergone surgery in Frank Pais.
Among them the Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamín and Juan Velasco Alvarado, who was Peru's first president.
The well-known Cuban orthopedic doctor also had the opportunity to be one of the Commander's doctors. Speaking of Fidel as a patient, he said, 'On one occasion he was suffering from epicondylitis and was banned from playing basketball, which he liked, so we treated his right arm and as he loved sport so much, we told him to bowl instead.
Soon afterwards he asked me to check his left arm because he had played with his right arm then his left and injured both, said the doctor.
Concluding the interview with great sadness in the eyes, Rodrigo Álvarez Cambras pointed out that Fidel was a visionary, someone whom we should study and honor.