Staff Reporter
After spending a fortnight in quarantine, 17 Cuban doctors are finally in the Free State and ready to boost the province’s capacity to fight the deadly COVID-19.
The doctors, who are part of a 217-member contingent that arrived in South Africa on April 27, will be deployed across the five districts in the province.
Health MEC Montseng Tsiu said in a statement released Monday that the doctors, who were in quarantine for two weeks, will work with the health teams in the different districts so they can impart their skills.
“They are here to be integrated into the health teams in the districts as their speciality is mainly in oriented primary healthcare,” she said.
The doctors include family physicians, information management specialists or biostatisticians, epidemiology technologists and health technologists.
“This deployment of Cuban health professionals is highly beneficial to South Africa as it is targeted at strengthening the health system,” Tsiu said.
“It further cements the strong ties that already exist between these two countries with the Free State already having the largest contingent of its medical students (who) studied in Cuba.”
Dismissing allegations that the deployment of the Cuban health professionals in the country had not been done following the law, the MEC said the health ministry had done everything according to prescripts in order to protect both the Cubans as well as South Africans in general.
“Our fellow Cuban health professionals were quarantined for 14 days in Pretoria since their landing in South Africa. They are now in the Free State where the provincial Department of Health is facilitating their registration with the Health Professions Council of South Africa as well as inducting them before they can practise medicine in the country,” Tsiu said.