• Submitted by: admin
• Health and Medicine
• 05 / 15 / 2007

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She states that she loves her job because it is necessary and beautiful, "I made the specialty in anaesthetic because it allows me to have the possibility to help all the patients, since those who need a common operation to those who are in critic conditions".

And she knows that anaesthetists are anonymus people when speaking of a surgery, but she feels glad to have in her hands the life of those who need an operation.

She finished her vacation and return to Timor Leste, the other side of the world, where she has spent 14 months.
This is her second internationalist mission, since she was in Ethiopia from 1982 to 1984 and now she can compare:

"In Etiophia I saw the extreme poverty of a country that was in the middle of a war at that time. In Timor there remain the consequences of centuries of colonialism, because though it is a golden cup having oil, wood and possibilities for tourism, the population is really poor and they survive thanks to donations, because there are no industries or any other kind of development".

Leading by example

As many other Cubans in the missions, Lucia noticed the lack of communication of Timor inhabitants and the staff of the hospitals, and the different customs in order to assist most critic patients as quick as possible to save their lives.

But the presence of Cuban doctors and nurses in each community of Timor have made possible to change step by step the almost none health assistance that existed there.

There, doctors from other countries give their service, mainly from Australia, Netherlands and Nepal and they have secondary assistance as the base of their medicine, and Cuban system s based in primary assistance, in prevention.

"But we have earned their respect and trust leading by example, because where we are, the patient has the garanty of being assisted, though in the case of the hospital we are forced to wait for the formality of the Timorian part, which authorizes the admission of each patient.

"Today, foreigners and natives look for us to work with them, because they know we went there to save lives, not to take their jobs away".

According to her criterion, perhaps the attitude of the Cuban medical brigade during the civil conflict on May 2006, made possible that many people changed their opinios about people of this Island:

There was a moment when almost all the nurses and staff of the hospital ran to the mountains, to protect themselves from the actions of the two ethnic groups who were fighting in the capital

"Cubans assumed the entire work, and we assisted injured people of the two sides the same way, because our job is to heal everyone who needs it".

Some days ago was celebrated the International Nurses Day paying homage to Florence Nightingale, considered the mother of nursing and an example of abnegation and love to this profession. The light of the lantern Florence carried when she visited injured people of the war of Crimea, (where she went as a volunteer), stays shimmering today in every space of the Cuban geography or other countries where beings like Lucia give part of their life.

Source: Guerrillero