There is nothing more important for a pregnant woman and future mother than the health of the baby growing in her womb, but nowadays, those women are able to have a soothing effect on her spirit according to great professionals. One of these transmitters of peace is the support and care they receive by the Medical Genetics Center in Santci Spiritus, central Cuban province that offers the future families the certainty and opinions to define new directions in life.
“We will never forget the love of our job, because many patients come worried bout their babies, and although we not always can give them the solution to their problems, we are responsible to give them all the scientific elements to have them take a reproduction decision with the adequate knowledge,” said Miguel Rodriguez Vazquez (Miki), Specialist in Clinical Genetics and director of the Medical Genetics Center.
In 2013 there were 99 diagnostics of different pathologies in the pre-natal period that allowed this center to reinforce its role for a better way of life of the mother and the child.
Prelude of decisions
There is a digital network founded by the province to link the municipal services to the provincial ones of medical assistance in more than 20 years of research, which has turned this center into reference in the detection of metabolic illnesses of genetics origin inside the national network.
In the Cuban Public Health (MINSAP) there are some strategies adapted to the province that have marked the staff’s job as responsible of the prevention of death caused by congenital faults; anomalies by birth which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), cause in the children 3.2 million disabilities every year and more than 200,000 deaths in the 28 days afterwards they are born.
“Our job starts in the primary assistance; our specialists are well trained for that. We also consult the overweight mothers, because they can have trouble when defining the problems, and we have the necessary technology for the procedure,” Rodriguez noted.
Patients suffering renal problems can have frequent damages, however, experts match they cause little influence in mortality rate. On the other hand, the fault in the neural tube and the heart diseases are the ones that cause the greater affections to the life of the child.
A different panorama
During the 26th National Meeting of Heart Disease Network held in Sancti Spiritus it was strengthened the application of the Cuba health system in the child care since it is born. Specialists from different countries arrived to Sancti Spiritus to exchange experiences with Cuba.
“The Heart Disease Network was founded in 1983 and it is an amazing program aimed to the assistance and recovery of the children that were sentenced to die and nowadays not only have the possibility to live, but many of them, are also active in society. It is a joint force between cardiologists and geneticists,” said in the meeting the Chilean specialist Katia Rivera Ladino to the media.
The Heart Surgeon specialist Pediatrician, thanks to the Cuban Revolution- she studied in the Latin American Medicine School in Cuba-, highlighted the integration among professionals of the country to offer children suffering heart disease, a different reality than the one lived before January 1, 1959, when less than the 20 percent were capable to arrive to adulthood.
Other specialists who participated like the British Michael Tynan distinguished the professionalism and ethic of the Cuban doctors, as well as the need to spread the national experience in the detention and treatment of the heart disease to the entire world, due to its obvious achievements.
“Thanks to the perseverance and more than two decades of training, Cuba is able to diagnose the 70 percent of the congenital heart diseases, even though there are provinces that exceeds the 85 or 90 percent of detection, among them Sancti Spiritus, with excellent results,” said the First Degree Specialist in Integral General Medicine and Master in Pediatric Cardiography at William Soler Pediatric Hospital who also participated in the event.
Forever Grateful
Professionals from Sancti Spiritus are protagonists of the welfare that goes beyond individualities. It was fed back by foreign experiences and they left theirs in their counterparts. Their contribution to the lowest rate of child mortality in the country together with the eastern province of Granma is an inspiration to continue working.
