A group of Cuban-trained South African doctors has conducted household visits in Mpunzana village outside Mthatha in the Eastern Cape to provide primary health care services to residents of the area.
The doctors and some medical students showcased the Cuban model of wellness to their South African counterparts.
The programme is dedicated to the late former president Nelson Mandela’s centenary celebrations and is in line with National Health Insurance (NHI) principles of ensuring Universal Healthcare for all.
Provincial spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha says, “It is a very special programme in this 100 years we are able to come to villages and ensure that people have universal access to health care and also to mark sure that people can now in his 100th year be able to access health care. Some of them in their own homes, some of them right in the villages instead of them going to places where they would normally go and get these services.”
Meanwhile, Dr Vusumzi Mehlo who is a product of the Nelson Mandela–Fidel Castro medical programme has encouraged young people to pursue a career in medicine.
“We do encourage even other people, maybe to pursue the career of medicine so that we can be able to have so many doctors in South Africa. This programme of Primary Health Care is going to require the staffing, we should get more people, more doctors, more nurses, more pharmacists and including other people that is the rehabilitation team.”
