Author: Cuban healthcare is `not poised to take off'

HEALTHCARE
Author: Cuban healthcare is `not poised to take off'
An author who formerly had faith in the Cuban healthcare system has now
visited the country, and changed her mind.
Posted on Thu, Jan. 10, 2008
BY JOHN DORSCHNER
jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com

An expert in worldwide medical tourism says a recent visit to Cuba has
convinced her that the healthcare system there is not ready to receive
an onslaught of Americans as she first thought.

Milica Bookman, co-author of Medical Tourism in Developing Countries,
says she and co-author/daughter Karla Bookman spent five days in Havana
in November, visiting three hospitals.

They visited one hospital on their own -- Hermanos Ameijeiras, which
they were told would accept foreigners only under emergencies, not
medical tourists planning procedures in advance. Government officials
recommended they visit another center, La Pradera, in the Siboney
neighborhood, which now specializes in giving free care to Venezuelans
undergoing various kinds of rehab.

Cira García Hospital, also recommended by officials, provides a wide
variety of care to Germans, Russians, Bahamians, Venezuelans and others.
She says the facility does not look as nice as the ''glossy
photographs'' in a brochure. ''Things are showing their age and some
parts are run-down,'' Bookman says, adding she's not a doctor and
couldn't judge the quality of care.

Experts say that the quality of healthcare offered foreigners is far
better than that provided to most Cubans. But for Bookman's research on
medical tourism, her concern was that Cira García wouldn't give her
specific prices for surgeries and treatments. Administrators said each
case was priced individually.

The Bookmans have traveled the world, focusing on places like India
where medical tourism is being developed to improve the local economies.
A fundamental precept in such places is that foreigners are given prices
in advance, usually at deep discounts from the costs in Europe and the
United States.

In October, before visiting Cuba, Bookman told The Miami Herald her
research showed that Cuba had the infrastructure that was ''poised to
take off'' as a major healthcare destination for Americans if/when the
embargo ends.

But her November visit changed her mind: ''It is not poised to take
off,'' she said.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/373517.html