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BRANCH COMMITTEE MEETING
8 JULY 2003 |
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On 8 July 2003 the Las Unison Branch
Committee had some special guests.
Dave Anderson the President of Unison and a delegation from Santiago de
Cuba.
They had come to say thank you for our part in the campaign called
'rebuilding the Cuban ambulance service' which saw Cuba receive 100
ambulances. |
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50 of these ambulances came from the LAS
while the other half came from other ambulance services around the country.
The campaign was started by Phil Lenton who was a Unison National Officer
based in Newcastle. He went on a trip to Cuba about 8 years ago with some
other Unison people. |
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While he was there he visited the Ambrosia
Grillo Hospital in Santiago de Cuba and saw for himself the appalling
conditions the health workers had to work under because of the American
blockade. He asked if there was anything he could do to help and was told
that what they were most short of was transport to bring patients in and
move staff around. |
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The Cuban Ministry of Public Health
(MINSAP) had relied on nearly 3,000 Soviet built ambulances, the newest of
which is currently more than 20 years old. Since the collapse of the Soviet
Union there have been no spare parts available for these vehicles and over
the last 10 years 90% of them have gone out of service. To obtain a high
quality fully equipped emergency ambulance say from Canada, MINSAP would
have to pay anything from $50,000 to $100,000, from its very limited hard
currency budget, which is subject to demands for urgent medicines and
medical equipment. |
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Phil decided to send a bus from the UK
which was the start of the campaign. He sent buses and equipment and
very soon his idea spread. He worked with the health unions in Cuba and the
trade union congress to broaden his idea to other parts of Cuba. |
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Phil Thompson introduced Eric Roberts to
Phil Lenton and discussed the possibility of sending 1 ambulance to Cuba,
the branch agreed to support the campaign and they circulated around Unison
and other unions an appeal. With the money raised from other Unison branches
and other unions we managed to send 50 ambulances from the London Ambulance
Service to Cuba. |
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These ambulances that had been retired from
service by the LAS and other services would have been scrapped or sold as
burger vans or on to private ambulance companies that then compete against
us for PTS contracts, are now continuing to save lives in Cuba. |
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The campaign has now come to an end as we
achieved what we set out to, but we should all be very proud of the campaign
which shows that when you put your mind to something you can achieve
anything. |
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Santiago de Cuba is Cuba's second city after
Havana and is on the east of the island. The province of Santiago de Cuba
has a traditional twinning link with the Northern Region founded through
Unison. The Ambrosia Grillo Hospital in Santiago de Cuba is twinned
with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead. |
