Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 19:19:15 CST
Forwarded message:
From: infomed!josefran (Dr Jose Fco Rodriguez Perez)
Subject: Information is Health (fwd)
From: dsllo (Departamento de Desarrollo)
Subject: Information is Health
To: josefran (Dr Jose Fco Rodriguez Perez)
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 96 21:28:51 EST
The access to the information is a vital need for health professionals. The difficult economical situation that Cuba has had to face after the collapse of the socialist block, particulary of the Soviet Union, together with the brutal strengthening of the U.S. blockade, has had a major impact on the nations capacity to provide the need information sources to support the efforts to keep and enhance the health status of our people.
A needed information, in the right hands, at the right time, can save a life, as much as, or even more, any drug or new procedure.
The National Center for Medical Science Information coordinates a national network of information units which includes libraries and other information centers serving health. The economic difficulties confronting our nation have compelled us to seek new alternatives to allow a critical level of information that could support the work of doctors and others health workers.
InfoMed has been one of these alternatives. The electronic network of Medical Science Information has made some progress, influenced by support given by the Ministry of Public Health with the backing of international agencies such as the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Latin American and Caribbean Center for Medical Sciences (BIREME).
The Network has been expanding in recent years and it has reached all provinces. It has services 24 hours a day on every day of week, and it provides and increasing number of information services that complement the information deficit which was received through traditional ways.
The computers, which are part of humanitarian and solidary gesture, are now held back on the U.S. border. They are intended to back these efforts so primary care doctors, Intensive Care Unit workers dedicated to save childern lives, and health care specialist in general, can work with these new posibilities provided by information and comunication.
In a world where everyone acknowledges the relevance of information as an essential resource for the improvement of the standard of living of our peoples, mainly their health status, any attempt to prevent the fulfillment of this objective is an attack to the rights of humankind and nations.
The National Center of Medical Sciences Information vigorously condemns the brutal an unjust actions taken against the caravan carring solidary and humanitarian aid for our people and exhorts every honest person in the world to express her or his support to the caravaneers for the giving-back of the confiscated computers and their arrival into the National Health System of the cuban people.
Havana, Febrary 2, 1996