Cuban women present in medical collaboration

 HAVANA, Cuba, Jul 21 (ACN) Cuba’s first international medical brigade to Algeria in 1963 was made up of 55 professionals—21.8 % of them female. Since then, and as the island extended its assistance to more than 150 countries, the presence of women in this force has steadily grown.

It was a good start, considering that the country had a low number of health workers in the early days of the Revolution, many of whom believed the lies of the U.S. government and left for that country, according to Dr. Felipe Delgado Bustillo, director of the Central Unit for Medical Collaboration (UCCM) Yearbook.

“When Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro established the first Henry Reeve contingent in September 2005 to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, there were many women in the rank,” he remarked. “From 2011 to 2023, 522,456 aid workers were deployed abroad, and 317,573 (60.8%) were women. (…) Besides, 36.4% of medical mission heads are women, who boasted the highest number (40.8%) in 2019.”

At UCCM, the institution in charge of this effort, 69.9% of the entire workforce is female, a figure in line with the implementation of the National Program for the Advancement of Women in medical care.