Friday, August 23, 2019

No Deaths of Infants, School Age Children, or Mothers Reported in Granma’s Mountains
Cuba ensures comprehensive medical attention to the population of mountainous areas, and especially children and mothers

Dilbert Reyes Rodríguez | informacion@granma.cu
August 15, 2019 15:08:58

The family doctor and nurse program is key to maintaining good health in mountain communities. Photo: Dilbert Reyes Rodríguez

SIERRA MAESTRA, Granma.— As a direct consequence of two of Cuba’s priorities – ensuring comprehensive medical attention to the population of mountainous areas and especially children and mothers – the infant mortality rate in mountain communities, in this eastern province, remains at zero, thus far in 2019, along with those for pre-school and school age children, and mothers.

In this vast region of the country’s highest mountain range, covering six municipalities, prevention, support, and monitoring measures designed by the Ministry of Public Health’s Maternal-Infant Care Program (PAMI), begin with educational work among women of fertile age.

Dr. Francisco Fornaris Jiménez, a 32-year-old pediatrician, is in charge of the program in the province. Asked about the key to such results, he identified the efficiency of the health system’s multidisciplinary approach and the leading role of family doctors and the nurses based in the community. Asked specifically about the infant mortality rate of zero, he noted that it is decisive to the current rate of 3.5 which has placed Granma fourth among the five provinces that maintain rates ​​lower than four per 1,000 live births, the national goal.

The work of the 116 medical offices serving more than 85,000 people in Granma’s mountains constitutes an unequivocal expression of the Revolution’s human essence, and of one of the objectives – met and maintained - of the Moncada Program that guided the rebels on July 26, 1953, the 66th anniversary of which was recently celebrated in this eastern province.

IN CONTEXT

-2018 closed with an infant mortality rate for Turquino Plan areas of 3.4 per 1,000 live births.

-The Turquino Plan includes remote, mountainous regions of Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, Ciego de Ávila, Holguín, Granma, Santiago de Cuba, and Guantánamo, with a population of 682,150 inhabitants, covered by the family doctor nurse program.

-In 2018 there were 8,119 births and only 28 deaths; and four maternal deaths, for a rate of four per 100,000 live births.

Source: MINSAP Maternal-Infant Care Department

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