Cuba: Health and Healing in Cuba
"The life of one child is worth more than all the wealth in the world." -- Che Guevara
For over twenty years, Global Exchange has organized these tours to study Cuba's internationally lauded health care system, which has been providing high quality, free universal health care to its 11,000,000 citizens for fifty years.
Throughout the 1960's, 70's and 80's, the Cuban people enjoyed the highest quality-of-life indices in Latin America, rivaling the United States and other countries of the developed world. Cuba was internationally praised as the one developing country that had eradicated hunger, and the World Health Organization touted the Cuban health care system as a "model for the world." In 1989, Cuba ranked 11th in the world in the Overseas Development Council's Physical Quality of Life Index, (which includes infant mortality, life expectancy and literacy) while the U.S. ranked 15th.
Despite the setbacks of the 1990's, caused by the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the tightening of the U.S. Embargo, Cuba's Health indices did not decline during that decade, but continued to improve. Many new innovations in the fields of Biotechnology and Health Tourism were achieved, as well as a remarkable integration of Natural and Traditional Medicine at all levels of care. Cuba's three-tiered system of Hospitals, Polyclinics, and Family Doctors continues to reach all sectors of the Cuban population with a variety of preventive, therapeutic, and curative practices.
In 2006, the United Nations Development Program selected Cuba's Program for the Development of Natural and Traditional Medicine as one of the five most important health-related programs worldwide. And the World Wildlife Fund designated Cuba the only nation in the world that could truly be said to be living "sustainably" because of its high human development index (nutrition, health care, education levels) and its low "ecological footprint" (resource use per capita).
Cuba models, for the rest of the world, the possibility of obtaining a high quality of life, on a relatively small national budget, while utilizing low levels of the planet's limited resources. It's Health Care System is but one of many areas in which this tiny island nation is showing us a way to live simply, healthfully, and sustainably on the Earth.
$2,250 land package price; $2,600 from Cancun; price may vary from Miami
- City Tour of Havana
- Hospital visit
- Ministry of Public Health representative
- Polyclinic
- Family Doctor Clinic
- Mental Health Clinic
- Rehabilitation Clinic
- Maternity Home
- Senior Center
- Society of Social Workers
- Center for children with special needs
- Pharmacy visit
- Roundtrip flight from Cancun/Havana/Cancun, three star hotel accommodations, breakfast daily, translation, transportation, and program fees
- Also includes Cuban visa as well as compulsory health insurance
- Price is based on double room accommodations; add $300 for single room
- Does NOT include airfare to/from Cancun, beverages, gratuities, travel insurance, personal expenditures, etc
To register, please send in your application form and a deposit of $500. Payments by Mastercard, Visa and Discover are welcome. Deposits for Cuba delegations are non-refundable unless the trip is canceled by Global Exchange as explained below.
Please note: We must meet a minimum number of trip participants on every trip, so please register early!
To ensure that all participants can plan accordingly, the minimum number of participants must be reached within 30 days before departure, or the trip will be canceled. Registered participants can choose to receive a full refund or transfer to a future group. Once a trip is confirmed (reaches the minimum # of participants) registrations may be accepted up to 1 week before departure.
This trip will be as diverse as possible in terms of race, age and life experiences. In some cases, a limited number of partial scholarships are available for low-income applicants.