Venezuela's Medical Revolution: Can the Cuban Medical Model be Applied in Other Countries?

This thesis analyzes the Cuban medical adaptation in Venezuela called Misión Barrio Adentro (MBA) and seeks to answer the question of whether MBA shows promise as a health system that improves medical accessibility for impoverished and marginalized populations. In many cases MBA succeeds by: utilizing a free universal health care system; locating health centres in previously underserved areas; providing medical education scholarships to populations from non-traditional backgrounds; creating a catchment system based on medical accessibility; scaling up the medical workforce to 60,000 community doctors by 2019; and broadening the very praxis of what health means in a Latin American social medicine approach. However, some challenges remain including issues of corruption, fragmentation, and polarization. Issues regarding internal and external migration of Misión Sucre-trained physicians remain to be comprehensively evaluated. However, the capacitation of non-traditional medical personnel, imbued with conciencia, is significant and could well become an important example for other countries.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:NSHD.ca#10222/40667
Date03 December 2013
CreatorsWalker, Christopher
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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