Eighteen Guyanese youth are slated to depart for Cuba shortly to pursue studies in medicine, bringing to a close the 2010 quota of Cuban scholarship students studying to become doctors.
The group, accompanied by Minister of Public Service Dr. Jennifer Westford, met President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday at State House where they were encouraged to do their best. The potential students, drawn from across Guyana, and more particularly the hinterland, also used the occasion to take group and individual photos with the Head of State as they venture off to the six-year scholarship stint.
Minister Westford later disclosed to the Government Information Agency (GINA) that Guyana and Cuba are to strike a negotiation for more students after President Jagdeo and a team travel to the Spanish speaking island later this year.
Next year, the largest batch of 300 students will be returning to Guyana, bringing the aggregate of Cuban graduate doctors in Guyana to 750. More students are also expected home in 2012 and 2013.
Hereafter, the focus of the scholarship programme will be directed to other specialty areas.
“We will be looking at more in the field of agriculture, engineering, but we are not going to do a lot of undergraduate medicine,” Minister Westford said.
The Cuban Scholarship Programme started in 2002 when the Cuban Government offered Guyana 350 scholarships. It was extended in 2006 when President Jagdeo and Cuba’s former President Fidel Castro signed an agreement for a further 965 scholarships over the period 2006 to 2010.
The scholarships are offered in various disciplines, including medicine, engineering, technology, agriculture and telecommunications.
The 2006 agreement also catered for the construction of four diagnostic and treatment centres at Diamond, Suddie, Mahaicony and Leonora, and the construction of the state of the art Ophthalmology centre at Port Mourant, Berbice. All of these agreements have been fulfilled and are serving the Guyanese population well.
Mission Miracle was another component of the programme that led to thousands of Guyanese with eye ailments, such as cataract, glaucoma and pterygium, travelling to Cuba in batches for surgical treatment.
The Mission Miracle programme ended in December 2007 as it was felt that the new Ophthalmology Centre at Port Mourant and the number of students returning from Cuba as doctors would complement the level of professional surgeries required.
Diplomatic relations between Cuba and Guyana were established on December 8, 1972. From this period, the relationship between both countries has been strengthening for the mutual benefit of the peoples of both countries.(GINA)