The New Dark Age

8 February, 2010 — Granma International – PHOTOS: JUVENAL BALÁN

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti.— Surgeon Oscar Suárez says that, without the medical electronics technicians, known as the “electromédicos,” they would be nothing. “We have worked nights, into the morning… but they aren’t far behind us. These young guys have also been sweating; they are often our anonymous help, because you always see the doctors attending to people, but behind us, there has to be an electromédico.”

“You see all of this here? They’ve set it all up. And every time we have a problem, there they are. They’re ‘doctors’ too, but doctors who take care of us.” That is how surgeon Suárez talks about the team of medical electronics technicians who set up Cuba’s five field hospitals in Haiti. In addition to this one that was readied in Arcahaie, about 20 km from Port-au-Prince, there are the four in Croix des Bouquets, Jacmel, Carrefour and Leoganne.

The team is made up of five Cubans, from Camagüey, Las Tunas, Matanzas and Havana, and since they arrived in Haiti, they have forgotten the fact that they come from different provinces, or that they have different specializations, or even their baseball rivalries. They are like the “five musketeers” as they set up the hospital. At the count of three, and with the help of the doctors, they carry heavy boxes, install electrical networks and put together the tiny screws and pieces of medical equipment as if it were a complicated jigsaw puzzle. That is when the hefty Osmín Camero, who has just carried a heavy load, says he could use the hands of a woman. Even so, not one screw escapes him, and he ends up putting together the monitor for the intensive care unit with incredible dexterity.

Among the parts and boxes, Osmín, another medical electronics technician, comments that they will later assemble four pulmonary ventilators. They have already set up the anesthesia machine, he adds, and the operating room is ready, with its surgical table, aspirator and lamps. “If everything works out, we should finish the work in two days, or a maximum of three.”

The thing is, this team’s most precious treasure is its experience. One of them, engineer Julio César Sáenz, was in Pakistan after the October 8, 2005 earthquake, where the Cubans established 34 (!) field hospitals. He explains how they installed those centers. “They are set up based on a surgical unit, intensive care unit, and post-op unit, along with a clinical laboratory, and then the whole hospital system is equipped. Along with the tent where patients are received, an average of five others is erected for each hospital. We also set up the tents that house the doctors and nurses.”

Several times, Julio César uses the word “flow-gram,” and in response to our puzzled expressions, explains that these hospitals are not set up arbitrarily. They have an order, a diagram, which indicates, for example, where the entrance to the doctor’s office should be, and then which ward should be next. The tents are not placed next to each other by chance.

But that’s not all. The engineer says that because of Haiti’s hot weather, areas like the surgical units require air conditioning, for which they are adapting foundations and setting up conventional systems. According to Julio César, the only reason that these are field hospitals is because they are in tents, because their technology is cutting-edge, the same as that used in regular hospitals in Cuba.

Jorge Luis Núñez, a young specialist in medical equipment services from the Central Institute of Digital Research, agrees, adding that “the machines are made in Germany, Japan and, a good number of them, in Cuba. From Cuba, we’ve brought the Doctus VI vital signs monitor; the pulse oximeter, which uses a battery, so that oxygenation monitoring can be mobile; an automated external defibrillator for patients suffering cardiac arrest – the new version also features pediatric paddles, so that it can be used with children; and the electrocardiograph, very common today in our polyclinics. Cuba is now marketing this technology in nations such as Mexico, Venezuela and Algeria.”

Jorge Luis comments that he came from his country with the mission of troubleshooting the installation of this equipment, but in Haiti, he has had to do everything. He helps to set up the tents and power generators, to arrange for the distribution of potable water for the laboratories, to create electrical networks…

He says the team of medical electronics technicians has risen to the occasion, and that it is up to them to keep going, anonymity or not. This is a very questionable word, especially when the first patient arrives at the Arcahaie field hospital and, thanks to the work of the technicians, has a place to be attended. He is Abdiala Joseph, who injured his right kneecap in an accident. Even though Arcahaie is not completely finished, the work begins. As the doctors see to his injury, the “electromédicos” speed up their labors.

Translated by Granma International