The Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) is
the realization of Fidel’s ideas, an expression of his concept
of human beings and of the world, of the principles that sustain
a genuine revolution, highlighted Dr. José Ramón Balaguer
Cabrera, minister of public health, in the event commemorating
the institution’s 10th anniversary, on November 15, in its Plaza
de las Naciones.
José
Ramón Machado Ventura receives from ELAM Rector Juan Carrizo the
diploma of recognition for Fidel, for having conceived and made
a school of solidarity, fraternity and justice a reality.
He affirmed that the students at the School, in
their integration, constitute a reflection of what humanity
needs: that sentiment which is rooted and strengthened when
relations among them demonstrate that there are no differences.
They are the same human beings with the same destiny, needs and
objectives, with the same search for a better future.
The event was presided over by First Vice
President José Ramón Machado Ventura who received, for Fidel, a
diploma of recognition for having conceived of and made a school
of solidarity, fraternity and justice a reality. He likewise
received one for President Raúl Castro Ruz.
Others were presented to José Miyar Barruecos,
José Ramón Balaguer and ELAM Rector Juan Carrizo Estévez.
The public health minister had words of praise
for the school’s staff and workers who, he stated, could
demonstrate a beautiful history at a time in which processes of
great significance are occurring in Latin America in the
struggle to attain a better world for our peoples, in the face
of the empire that is attempting to steal the future.
Both Balaguer and Carrizo communicated a
qualitative and quantitative view of ELAM’s 10 years of
existence, during which 7,256 doctors from 30 countries have
been trained for a mission well defined by its creator: the
training of comprehensive general doctors directed toward
primary health care as the fundamental scenario of their
professional conduct, and at a high scientific-technical,
humanist, ethical level of solidarity, capable of acting in
their environment in accordance with regional health needs, as a
contribution to sustainable human development.
The current intake at ELAM totals 21,359
students, including 12,017 on the new training program for Latin
American doctors, distributed in the country’s medical science
universities and faculties, the ELAM headquarters and the
Caribbean Faculty in Santiago de Cuba, and in which 100
countries are represented.
The majority of students are from modest
backgrounds, the sons and daughters of workers and campesinos,
some from very poor families and remote communities of different
original and ethnic peoples.
With the emergence of ALBA as a process of
integration and cooperation among our peoples, Venezuela has
created an ELAM with a student intake from different countries.
More than 25,000 Venezuelan students are being trained with the
direct participation of our professors in every teaching
scenario where those students are to be found, including within
the Barrio Adentro program in that country.
Dr. Carrizo stressed that the fundamental
characteristic of these doctors trained in Cuba is the
development of professional ethical values, internationalist and
cooperative in nature, and a high level of human sensibility,
linked to a strong scientific-technical base.
"Thank you, comandante," Carrizo said, "for your
lesson in humanism, for your confidence in that a better world
is possible," finally endorsing the graduates, students, family
members and peoples benefiting from this noble peace project
with justice as "our Nobel of hope."
Alihuen Antileo García, a Mapuche from Chile and
president of the ELAM Student Body, and Dr. Carlos Flores
García, a Guatemalan from the first ELAM graduation in 2005,
also spoke at the event.
Alihuen expressed his conviction that the ELAM
road is, "Medicine in love with the art of prevention and cure,"
not that of checkbook doctors trained within capitalism, and
affirmed that "the sons and daughters of excluded humanity are
being educated no more and no less than in Cuba."
Dr. Flores reflected that while the United
States is maintaining a School of the Americas in our land, from
which hundreds of soldiers graduate for repressive armies in
Latin America, and is opening military bases, the thousands of
doctors who have already graduated from ELAM "are going about
saving lives, opening posts and health centers." For that reason,
"on a day like today I exhort the president of that nation to
follow Cuba’s example. Found schools of medicine, Mr. President,
help us in this region to build knowledge!"
Also present were other members of the Political
Bureau and Secretariat, Party and state leaders, and those of
student organizations and representatives of the diplomatic
corps.