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Level -> Cuban health care (6/25/2007 3:50:28 PM)
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HAVANA - When Jose Luis Cabrera had coronary bypass surgery after a heart attack five years ago, his wife had to bring food and clean sheets to him in the hospital. The operation itself didn’t cost the Cuban couple a cent.
“I am so grateful. They saved his life,” said his wife, Daisy Martinez, who works as a cleaner in an office. “It would have cost a fortune in the United States.”
Hospitals in Cuba are often shabby and badly lit, and lack equipment and medicines. But the health system built by President Fidel Castro’s government has produced results on a par with rich nations using the resources of a developing country.
The average life expectancy of a child born in Cuba is 77.2 years, compared with 77.9 years in the United States, according to the WHO.
The number of children dying before their fifth birthday is seven per 1,000 live births in Cuba and eight per 1,000 in the United States.
Yet the United States spends more than 26 times as much on health — $6,096 per person a year, compared with only $229 in Cuba, the WHO figures show.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19414097
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