The members of the contingent of medical specialists from Cuba's Henry Reeve Medical Brigade who responded to Barbados' call for assistance due to the COVID-19 outbreak in April 2020, recently returned to Cuba after completing two years of internationalist work. The cohort of 126 doctors, nurses and laboratory technologists departed Grantley Adams International Airport on Thursday, June 2, and were showered with praise and words of thanks from Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley and Minister for Health Ian Gooding-Edghill at a farewell reception held at the Worthing Court Hotel, Christ Church, on Wednesday night. Prime Minister Mia Mottley expressed there that what was done by the Cuban medical brigade will never be forgotten by the Barbadian people because many make statements but few extend their hands in a tangible way as did those who left their family, their country, their environment and their language to give us his solidary help, and evoked the certainty that the day will come when Cuba's commendable contribution to humanity in the form of specialized medical assistance will be recognized not only by our Caribbean nations, but by the entire global community.
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The first team of Cuban health specialists arrived in Barbados in April 2020 to strengthen the response of local Barbados public health personnel to the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that early stage of the pandemic, the then Minister of Health, the Right Honorable Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic, had said that assistance was essential in light of the creation of Harrison's Point specialized facilities for isolation care and intermediate and intensive therapy, which had been specially built in the north of the country in record time to treat patients with COVID-19, so as to eliminate any aggravated impact on the resources of Queen Elizabeth Main Hospital.
On the occasion of the appearance of the Delta variant of the SARS-COV-2 virus, at the request of the Barbadian government, the Cuban health team was reinforced with the arrival of a second cohort of medical and laboratory specialists from the Henry Reeve brigade itself in February 2021. Speaking in a ceremony at the Monument to Cuba that commemorates the lives lost in the terrorist attack on Cubana flight 455 on October 6, 1976, they declared “We come to tell the brothers and sisters of the Barbadian people, and especially the health personnel from Barbados, who are by your side in this fight for life against COVID-19 and against death; that we will give all our strength, and that we will fulfill the commitment for which our Cuban Revolution has sent us here.” These specialists joined the 100 nurses who were already working under the direction of the brigade chief, Dr. Daymarelis Ortega Rodríguez.
The 126 specialists of the Brigade arrived back in the country on the night of Thursday, June 2, at the José Martí International airport, and in the morning hours of Friday, June 3, to their respective homes throughout Cuba, after having fulfilled with excellent results two years and two months of a mission to which they originally left for 6 months of work. The government of Barbados conferred on each and every one of them the Humanitarian Recognition that was given to all Barbadians who participated in the confrontation of the pandemic, which was given symbolically to a group of Cuban internationalists, which will eventually be sent in the form of a medal to all the members of the Brigade who returned yesterday.
The presence of the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade in Barbados will be replaced by a new Cuban Medical Brigade in the coming days.