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ALBA Solidarity
With Nicaragua
By Ivan Noel Orta Martín
Nicaragua - Solidarity support from the Bolivarian
Alternative for the Peoples of our America
(ALBA) member countries helps facilitate
President Daniel Ortega''s government
improve the health system in Nicaragua. More
than 100,000 people have benefited since
May, 2008, from the opening of the High
Technology Center donated to Nicaragua by
the government of President Hugo Chavez. The
Center is supervised by Cubans, such as
Doctor David Leyva Cabrera, an expert in
radiology.
The center has modern equipment for magnetic
resonance, a tomograph, two ecographs, an
electrocardiograph, telecommand equipment
for special studies, among other equipment.
Low income Nicaraguans, from all over the
country, are assisted in this center, and it
is only here that are they able to have
access to expensive diagnostic technology,
the Cuban technician told Prensa Latina.
Leyva, who is also an Instructor of
Radiology for Nicaraguan students at the
Lenin Fonseca Teaching Hospital, referred to
studies about neurosysticercosis, a parasite
that uses humans and pigs as temporary
hosts, and affects the central nervous
system.
This illness produces convulsions, headaches
and other symptoms that disable the patient
from both a social and labor point of view.
It can now be detected, thanks to the
existing technology, he said.
The specialist also said 124 people were
diagnosed from September to November, 2008,
among the 1,000 patients examined. That
number did not even reach 10 before, due to
lack of access to these technological
advances.
He said there is now a high percentage of
people who are being studied so as to detect
certain diseases, such as cancer and
congenital malformations, which have the
highest incidences in children's nervous
systems, and are detected by means of
ultrasounds and tomographies.
University graduate Nurse Barbara Borrero
Sacaras, another Cuban specialist that works
in this center, said that to poor people
this is hugely significant, because they did
not have access to this type of care, care
that only the wealthy sectors had.
Although the authorities do not intend to
measure the economic effects of these acts
of solidarity, the effects are shown in the
health of the population, but if taken out
of the solidarity relationship context
amongst ALBA member countries, statistics
show a savings for the population that
exceed $3 million. |
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