CUBA: 30 Dec. UPDATE: Ray Suarez Responds To O'Grady Blasts; Wiki Cable Disputes PBS/ Castro Health Care Boasts.

M.HERALD/ JUAN TAMAYO /

   The debate over the true efficacy of Cuba's health care system continues.
   First, last week PBS reporter Ray Suarez delivered a mostly positive and disappointing look at its system that was disputed by the Wall Street Journal's Mary O'Grady... and here on this blog.
    Now, a January 2008 dispatch made public this month by WikiLeaks offers another insider's assessment.
    It is titled ``Cuban healthcare: Aquí Nada es Facil'' -- Nothing here is easy -- written by a nurse, officially a Foreign Service Health Practitioner, who had lived there for over 2 years. It consists of anecdotes gathered from ``manicurists, masseuses, hair stylists, chauffeurs, musicians, artists, yoga teachers, tailors, as well as HIV/AIDS and cancer patients, physicians, and foreign medical students.''


LATEST UPDATE:
Ray Suarez, the PBS Newshour reporter responds to some of O'Grady's charges:
"The examples of Ms. O'Grady's myopic outrage are many. One man we interviewed for the series particularly ticked off the Cuban government. Oscar Espinosa Chepe is one of "The 75," a group of political prisoners hassled and mistreated for years by the Castro government, before the majority was pressured to leave the country."
FOR MORE, SEE:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/12/ray-suarez-responds-to-criticism-of-cuba-series.html

 FOR THIS BLOG'S CRITICAL POST ON SUAREZ, SEE:
http://thehypervigilantobserver.blogspot.com/2010/12/cuba-wsjs-ogrady-blasts-pbss-ray.html

CUBA: WSJ's O'Grady Blasts PBS's Ray Suarez For Medical "Fairy Tales."

WSJ/ Mary O'Grady/

   Recently, this blog lauded the PBS Newshour- in advance- for sending its best reporter Ray Suarez to Cuba.
    Suarez did 3 reports on Cuba's medical system, seemingly only dwelling on its successes.
    Today in the Wall Street Journal, arch conservative and professional Castro family hater Mary O'Grady blasts Suarez for his timid and overly positive reports.
"...Suarez's report, by contrast, is like a state propaganda film. In one segment, an American woman named Gail Reed who lives in Cuba tells him that the government's claim of its people's longevity is due to a first-rate system of disease prevention. He then parrots the official line that Cuba's wealth of doctors is the key ingredient. What is more, he says, these unselfish revolutionary "foot soldiers" go on house calls.
AND: " Given Fidel's habit of making things up, it's hard to know how many competent doctors the government has trained. But there is no disputing the fact that thousands of medics have been sent overseas in large numbers to earn hard currency for the regime. There is also no question that Cubans are paying the price at home."
    Having visited Cuba many times and once even married to nursing student there, I must agree with O'Grady.
   And that's rare. In fact, it's only happened once before on this blog.
   But my esposa always bitterly complained about the competence of the doctors that she worked with in her city. All the good ones, she claimed were in Venezuela or in La Habana servicing tourists for hard currency.
   Here's a previous post, praising Suarez when he announced the upcoming report.
   I'm now slowly swallowing those words as I write this.
http://thehypervigilantobserver.blogspot.com/2010/12/cuba-americas-best-tv-journalist.html

CUBA: Fears Mixed With Hope As Workers Cope With Economic Changes.

PBS/NEWSHOUR/ 10:56 VIDEO With TEXT/

   In the first of 3 reports, Ray Suarez gives an overview on Raul Castro's new economic reforms to promote much needed growth and also preserve socialism.
    "But is change coming? Cubans have heard it before. And, in previous decades, the government opened the door a crack to the development of a small business sector, only to pull back the reforms by refusing to issue more new licenses.
     A tiny private sector remains from the '90s. Now there's a national debate about making that sector bigger. A rare Communist Party Congress is set for the spring to discuss change. Self-employment looms large in Cuba's future. The government has already announced the coming firings of half-a-million workers. To start the transition, over 100 different occupations will be opened for self-employment."
AND:"... right now, we live in a moment of complete frustration, and most of the Cuban people are feeling that way. The revolution is going backwards. It's now taken the country back to a point that is worse than it was before 1959. Our dreams have become a nightmare."

CUBA: One Of America's Best TV Journalist Returns For First Time In 23 Years.

PBS.ORG/NEWSHOUR/
    I've observed over the years that after Thanksgiving, many of America's media mavens rediscover Cuba. Maybe it's the Northeast's chilling winds that make the balmy weather of La Habana suddenly more tantalizing.
    But, traditional media's ad meltdown may have changed that.
   However, there is a fresh hope of new insightful reporting about Cuba.
    From Ray Suarez of America's public TV network.
    Suarez has returned to Cuba for the first time since the 80's when the Soviets held sway. During the next weeks, he will be reporting and blogging about the changes he sees. Even after over a dozen trips to Cuba since 1996, I expect to learn a lot about today's Cuba from Suarez.