CU Infomed
July 22, 2001

HAVANA, Cuba - Since Fidel Castro's declaration in the 1970s that his country would be a world power in medicine, health care has been a high priority in Cuba. But there have been obstacles along the way. The fall of the Soviet Union saw Cuba's economy plummet and like all other facets of government, the Public Health Ministry's budget suffered. For example, Cuba's National Center for Medical Sciences Information (CNICM) -- responsible for sustaining modern technology within the medical system -- saw its budget curtailed from $1 million to $35,000.  Enter USA/Cuba InfoMed, a nonprofit in San Jose, California, which is responsible for donating the majority of a technological infrastructure that helps Cuba's 65,000 physicians and medical professionals to locate journal articles, pharmaceutical data and medical alerts at medical schools, primary care facilities and hospitals island-wide. David Wald and Dr. Juan Reardon, the outfit's cofounders, support public health development in Third World countries, especially Cuba, by delivering second-hand computers and other materials donated by Bay Area businesses. According to Wald, since the organization's inception in the mid-'90s, they have transported 2,135 workstations and several hundred printers and disk drives under license from the U.S. Department of Commerce to help maintain and expand Cuba's medical information system. But InfoMed's work is not merely motivated by sympathetic American philanthropy, Wald said. "We're not in the charity business. Our outlook is essentially one that seeks to advance and protect Cuban society. We've chosen Cuba because it is under siege and we believe it is vital for Third World countries to have Cuba remain on the scene." In 1993, the Public Health Ministry and CNICM initiated Project InfoMed, a network that links outlying areas to provincial servers and a central database in Havana in hopes of cutting the cost of purchasing medical information -- mostly from the United States -- in hard copy form. The system has worked so far, freeing up dollars to purchase more hardware for the network from European countries and Canada. Pedro Urra, responsible for the overall design of the network, said his U.S. InfoMed counterparts have played a substantial role, especially where the Public Health Ministry did not have new equipment to install. "U.S. InfoMed, as a movement against the embargo and for solidarity, is really important to us," Urra said. "In terms of quantity, they have made a great contribution." More than 90 percent of USA/Cuba InfoMed's computers come from several well-known Bay Area businesses that Wald declined to name. He says they know exactly where their donations end up. Alameda County Computer Recycling Center was the organization's largest benefactor in 2000 and remains so this year. James Burgett, ACCRC's executive director, says Wald sought him out after reading a write-up in Wired magazine. "They demonstrated they had permission to send computers to Cuba," Burgett said. "You can free people with computers or you can oppress them. I'm going after the people that free them."   But providing medical information and medical capabilities to the world in general is something ACCRC is quick to support. Some of ACCRC's other beneficiaries include the Cambodian government, the Russian space program and the probation and parole departments of Latvia and Estonia. "Frankly, I don't give to Cuba," Burgett said. "I give to InfoMed and InfoMed gives to Cuba. As long as what they're doing is legal and approved by the government, I don't have a problem with it." With a society such as Cuba's -- one where 99 percent of the population is considered educated -- USA/Cuba InfoMed has confidence that their hard work is put to good use. "Without us, they wouldn't have nearly as advanced a network as they have now," said Peter Bell, a USA/Cuba InfoMed volunteer. "On the other hand, they know more about the network than we do. We don't teach them about their network; they teach us. It's very important to keep in mind who the boss is. It isn't us."