In Their Own Words :: Heruerrea Miriam Romero

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Pediatric nurse, served in Honduras

In 2002 there was a dengue fever epidemic in Honduras. Children were dying every day. We spent 27 months there, and we were able to control the outbreak. Students from the Latin American Medical School in Havana gave up their summer vacations to help.

We were scared when we first arrived because we were not used to working in an area with so many soldiers with large machine guns. There was a lot of violence.

The hospital was full of children. I did pediatric nursing. It is so tender working with children. We created special treatment areas just for dengue, but people would pretend they had dengue to get treatment for their other problems. We saw people who had never seen a doctor before. The people didn't want us to leave. It was very hard because we saw children dying. People cried when we left.

Read Cuba's Cure, our article on the Cuban health care system.
And see ¡Salud!, a film on Cuba's global health mission.