Founded more than two decades ago, SERVIMED is today a symbol of Cuba’s health system throughout the world, its prestige earned through the services that it has provided people who visit Cuba for healthcare at various accredited institutions that are known for their high scientific and humanitarian standards.
In an interview with Cubaplus, Dr. Ileana Reyes, SERVIMED director of sales and operations, said that what is most sought by patients who visit Cuba are precisely those ethical, scientific and humanitarian principles that characterise the country’s healthcare professionals. That statement is based on the opinions of patients themselves. Often they come from countries where the scientific conditions exist for treating their problem, but they come to Cuba for a second opinion, Reyes said.
She explained that today, SERVIMED has numerous programs for treating a diversity of ailments, including addictions (drugs and alcohol), which are provided in the El Cocal and El Quinqué clinics in the eastern province of Holguín; and ophthalmologic services for treating all types of eye problems, including retinitis pigmentosa, cataracts, and glaucoma, etc. Moreover, SERVIMED provides neurological restoration programs for people affected by vascular and encephalic vascular accidents; children with neurological after-effects of cerebral paralysis stemming from problems at birth; and programs for intensive neurological rehabilitation for people who have lost abilities due to cranial accidents and trauma, Reyes said.
In the specialty of orthopaedics, spinal, knee and other types of surgery are provided, and SERVIMED has specialists for general clinical/surgical evaluations, she noted. With respect to plastic surgery, Reyes said that Cuba is in big demand in many countries, although its principal market in that specialty is Canada.
Other programs include the evaluation and treatment of oncological diseases, and “we are initiating steps toward bariatric surgery, which consists of surgical intervention for reducing stomach size for individuals who need to reduce their body weight,” she said.
Moreover, SERVIMED also provides monoclonal antibody therapy for lung cancer and head and neck tumours, improving the quality of life of patients who qualify for this treatment. It is important for this therapy to be implemented in non-complicated stages of the disease to obtain the best immunological response, Reyes said.
With respect to cardiovascular diseases, “we are in the vanguard, because our Cardiovascular Institute in Havana recently underwent repairs and updating, and it has modern surgery wards for implementing multiple clinical/surgical treatments,” she said.
For access to the services provided by SERVIMED, one can communicate directly via its website, and also through the sales office network that it has in numerous countries in South America, Central America, North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
“When people choose SERVIMED for treating any kind of health problem, they can be certain that they will be treated properly, because we take care of classifying their cases, finding the right institution in accordance with the health issue, organizing their travel, processing their immigration paperwork and follow-up, and providing transport to the medical center,” Reyes said. “That is, SERVIMED oversees everything from the person’s departure from their country of origin to their return,” she emphasized.
By Mercy Ramos, CubaPLUS
2014
