The Hague, September 5, 2017. MediCuba, a network of associations and non-governmental organizations (NGO) that makes solidarity work in the field on public health in Cuba, has just welcomed Focusgroep Cuba as its newest member.Focusgroep-Cuba is a Group of inter-university non-governmental network from the Netherlands that have been active since 2015. Integrated by Med students and professors inspired by the Cuban public health system, the main purpose of this network is to build and expand medical collaboration between Cuba and the Netherlands on the basis of respect to human dignity and equality, and other principles such as solidarity, prevention of diseases and the promotion of health care.
Focusgroep Cuba has established in these years working links with the School of Medical Sciences of Havana, the Center for Molecular Immunology (CMI), the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CGEB) and the National Center for Medical Genetics by which they have organized internships, working visits, scientific research and solidarity with Cuba.The members of the group, who come from the medicine schools of universities from all over the Netherlands have made possible working visits, internships and other studies for Dutch students and Medicine residents in Cuba. By late 2017, 78 students and residents from the Netherlands have taken part in the exchange program on primary healthcare in Cuba and in 2016 four students went to Cuba to study their PhD. Six groups of general practitioners, geriatric physicians, occupational physicians, medicine professors and health staff from the Netherlands have visited Cuba to learn about prevention and health care.
Focusgroep Cuba also collaborates with the Dutch Healthcare Union (FNV) and the Nurses National Organization in the district of Buurtzorg to implement feasible experiences of the Cuban healthcare system in the Netherlands, taking into account the achievements of collective and individual prevention and the well-coordinated work in the neighborhoods of Cuba in this field.