Description
Book SynopsisThis study examines Cuba''s medical system from the inside out and illuminates what the numbers cannothow the system works and what Cuban life is like. Through qualitative interviews and participant observation, the everyday realities of the Cuban experience are revealed and through them, the values and ideologies of the revolution. This book shows how universal access to medical services can make the difference in the lives of poor people. Cuba does more than provide free services however; it has redefined what medicine is and what doctors and nurses can be. This work deepens the scholarship on Cuban medicine. It is the first to focus solely on the community based primary care systemComprehensive Family Medicine and its activist health care professionalsthe family doctors and nurses. Caring for Them from Birth to Death is based on interviews and observations conducted in the field over three years in Cuba. The book challenges assumptions about the health of poor populations and demon
Trade ReviewWhat Michael Moore's documentary Sicko hinted but not explained, is wonderfully and clearly illustrated in this book. Cuba's health system, with its focus on prevention, community-based doctors, and a people-over-profits approach produces better health outcomes and at a lesser cost than the HMO-driven for-profit health system of the USA. This book ought to be required reading for progressive politicians, policy makers, development and public health specialists, and by every medical student in the USA. Bravo, Christina Perez! -- Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Duke University; author of Racism Without Racists
This engaging narrative of preventative community based medicine, practiced in spite of a long and punishing US embargo, brings the reader to tears. Perhaps this story told by ordinary family doctors, nurses, and patients—- who situate care in neigborhoods—-can open the imagination of Americans so desperate before our own hijacked and moribund health care system. Perez captures the vibrant daily life within which practitioners heal, cajole, and dance the Cuban body. -- Renny Golden, Professor Emerita at Northeastern Illinois University, current adjunct professor at University of New Mexico, author of War on t
In her superb book, Christina Pérez offers the most incisive analysis of the Cuban health system yet to appear in the English language. Based on remarkable interviews and observations during several years of research in Cuba, this definitive work will become a classic. The book illuminates the integration of complementary and alternative medicine within primary care, as well as Cuba's path-breaking approaches to social medicine and public health. As a model of social scientific research, the book's influence will go far beyond health and medicine. This wonderful book will inspire teachers, students, researchers, policy makers, and anyone who cares about the relationships between health and society. -- Howard Waitzkin
Caring for Them from Birth to Death is a testimony to the remarkable medical achievements of a revolutionary system driven by human needs rather than profit. Christina Perez offers a fascinating, first-hand look at Cuban socialism as it defies neoliberal prescriptions and continues to deliver comprehensive, prevention-oriented health care services under the crushing weight of a U.S. trade embargo. Sensitive and engaging, the reader comes face-to-face with ordinary Cubans and gets an unprecedented look at the valiant people who make this exemplary system work on an everyday basis. Open-minded but far from indifferent, Perez's fresh approach provides an inside look long missing in the literature and enables the reader to draw their own conclusions about Cuba's revolutionary system of medicine. -- Richard A. Dello Buono, Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico
Table of ContentsChapter 1 List of Figures and Tables Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 Chapter 1: Materialist Medicine and the Battle of Ideas Chapter 4 Chapter 2: Living and Working in the Field Chapter 5 Chapter 3: Family Doctors, Havana Neighborhoods, and Community Medicine Chapter 6 Chapter 4: Health is Life Chapter 7 Chapter 5: Reproductive Health and the Family Doctor Chapter 8 Chapter 6: Holding Vigil Over Families Chapter 9 Chapter 7: Ser Humano Chapter 10 Conclusion: Health Care is a Right Chapter 11 Selected Bibliography
