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Bush and Chavez Still Duking It Out over Medical Aid

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - Sep 20, 2007.

[A "fight" for political influence in Latin America by President Bush
and President Chavez is evidenced in the health programs each funds in
the region, but experts say the U.S. cannot compete with Venezuela,
according to a report by Bloomberg.  U.S. Naval Ship Comfort has
dispensed cataract surgeries for the last 3 months, while free medical
programs in Venezuela goes back four years.  The state-sponsored social
mission called Barrio Adentro has placed some 20,000 Cuban doctors in
Venezuelan neighborhoods, and this and other programs have been
extended beyond Venezuela's borders to various parts of South America,
Central America, and the Caribbean.  Venezuela's 1999 constitution
establishes health care as a human right, making the country a leader
in this area. -VIO]

Bloomberg - Sep 19, 2007
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ajMyMOwrrM5U

Bush, Chavez, Castro Wield Scalpels in Fight for Latin America

By Bill Faries

The latest battle for influence in Latin America is pitting the U.S.
Navy's medical corps against brigades of Cuban and Venezuelan doctors.

President George W. Bush, eager to limit fallout from congressional
delays in approving trade deals with Peru, Panama and Colombia, has
dispatched the U.S. Naval Ship Comfort to the region. With 12 operating
rooms and a 1,000-bed hospital, the converted oil tanker has performed
about 180,000 free surgeries and exams since June.

The U.S. health offensive is designed to blunt the influence of
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro, both
of whom provide free medical care in Latin America and the Caribbean,
often subsidized by Venezuelan oil proceeds. Cuba also builds clinics
and hospitals and trains foreign medical students in a six-year
curriculum at the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana.

Skeptics say the Comfort's port calls won't substantially enhance
America's influence in the hemisphere. ``It's hard for the U.S. to
compete with Cuba and Venezuela in this way,'' said Peter Hakim,
president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy- research group in
Washington. ``It makes us look like we're trying to imitate them.
Cuba's doctors aren't docked at port for a couple days but are in the
country for years.''

U.S. officials counter that the Comfort's mission ``is a very visible
way to demonstrate our commitment to America's friends and neighbors,''
Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes said in a telephone interview.

Warm Welcome

Bob Kapcio, the Comfort's captain, said the ship even received a warm
welcome in Nicaragua -- whose president, Daniel Ortega, fought
U.S.-backed rebels in a civil war with his Sandinista government during
the 1980s.

``When we arrived in Nicaragua, the local Sandinista party mayor kept
giving me bear hugs,'' said Kapcio, whose previous assignment in 2004
was aboard a destroyer in the Persian Gulf.

Kapcio, 47, gave a tour of the ship to Nicaragua's Army commander,
General Omar Halleslevens, and Vice President Jaime Morales, who said
at a press conference afterwards that the country was ``grateful for
the help'' the Comfort gives ``the most destitute Nicaraguan people.''

Eight-year-old Maria Francisco had bandages around her nose and mouth
after an operation for a cleft pallet on the Comfort when it was docked
off the coast of Corinto, Nicaragua.

``She's doing great,'' said her aunt, Luisa Sanchez, 32, before she and
Maria were lowered from the 10-story-high ship into a small boat for
the ride home.

Message: `We Care'

When Bush, 61, announced the Comfort's deployment in March, just before
he started a tour of five Latin American nations, he declared that
``we're making it absolutely clear to people that we care.'' Chavez
shadowed him on the trip, telling 30,000 people in Buenos Aires while
Bush was across the Rio de la Plata in Uruguay that ``he's dressed in a
sheep's skin, but he's a wolf trying to divide us.''

The Comfort has so far visited Belize, Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador,
Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Haiti. This week the ship is in Trinidad
and Tobago, with more stops planned in Guyana and Suriname.

In addition to providing onboard operations and exams, the Comfort
sends technicians to repair medical equipment at local hospitals and to
check on children at orphanages and schools. The U.S. also, through the
Agency for International Development, funds programs in Latin America
to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS and improve child survival and
maternal health.

Scoffing at the U.S.

Castro and Chavez, 53, scoff at the U.S. efforts, which they say pale
next to their own. In a July 16 article for the Havana-based daily
Granma, Castro, 81, contrasted the Comfort's one-week stay in Haiti
with Cuban doctors who work ``in 123 of the country's 134 communes.''

The Communist nation has more than 32,000 medical professionals in 101
countries worldwide, according to its embassy in Bolivia. The
ambassador there, Rafael Dausa, said in an interview that Cuban doctors
completed their 6 millionth free consult in Bolivia in July.

Chavez's Venezuela, meanwhile, has paid for more than 81,000 eye
surgeries as part of the country's ``Miracle Missions'' project, said
Dr. Rosalinda Prieto, 45, director of the Perez Carreno hospital in
Caracas. The program has flown in patients from countries including
Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Nicaragua for free operations.

``They didn't ask for anything,'' said Alicia Alemany, 72, a Chilean
who received a free cornea transplant in Caracas. Chavez is ``an
example for other countries,'' she said. ``He's distributing wealth.'' 
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