LETTER: Castro's Cuba provided much good for world

So Fidel Castro has died at the age of 90, having outlasted 10 U.S. presidents and a 57-year embargo that was supposed to bring him to his knees. The government that he established in 1959 endures today.

We hear in the news that now Cuba will be saved from the poverty and stagnation of so many years, and the country will thankfully join the paradise of Western capitalism.

My wife and I traveled to Cuba eight times between 1992 and 2004, often leading groups of Americans numbering 20 or more. In the course of those visits, we gained some perspectives on life in Cuba and on the ways in which its socialist government has strengthened its society and the world around it. This has happened in a country in which the GNP/person is at most $10,000, one fourth that which we enjoy in the United States. Here are a few examples:

In 1959 the literacy rate was around 50 percent. Now it is 99 percent.

By emphasizing the delivery of public health at the local level, Cuba has an infant mortality rate of 4.6/1000 (U.S. is 5.8), and an equal life expectancy of 70 years.  Whereas Cuba has more doctors per 1000 (5.9 to 2.3), the U.S. is clearly ahead in the rates of obesity and diabetes. It is important to note that in these measures, Cuba is far ahead of the countries that surround it in the Caribbean Sea.

What is more remarkable is the way in which the Cuban government has shared its medical expertise with the rest of the world. For several decades Cuba has sent medical personnel to the developing world both to improve public health and to aid in medical crises. For example, in the West African Ebola epidemic, 460 Cuban doctors and nurses risked their lives to provide medical assistance to those afflicted.

In addition, Cuba has taken upon itself to educate doctors from countries throughout this hemisphere to carry back to their countries the expertise to improve public health where they live. Each year more than 1,500 students, some from the USA, graduate to become doctors, and return to their home countries to provide medical services to the underserved.

It is true that there are human rights problems in Cuba, as in many countries, and that the citizens may not enjoy all the freedoms that we cherish. Nevertheless it is important to realize the strengths that country possesses, and build on them in the future relations between our countries. —Sam Neff, Whitefish