The joint cooperation, which began in 2022 and concluded this Friday, enabled the introduction of computing resources, technologies, and supplies for network connectivity infrastructure and the use of the Galen Clínica System, diagnostic media module in five hospitals on the island.
According to the First Deputy Minister of the MINSAP, Tania Margarita Cruz, and the Japanese ambassador to the island, Nakamura Kazuhito, the collaborative partnership between the two nations over the past three years has primarily benefited the Cuban healthcare system.
At the project’s closing ceremony, held at the Manuel Fajardo Hospital in the capital, the deputy head of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) affirmed that the digitalization of imaging services at the selected hospitals, fosters exchanges between professionals for healthcare and academic purposes.
It also represents a step forward in the digital transformation of these institutions and improves the quality of service delivered to the population by facilitating more agile reports and diagnostic results for decision-making with patients, reducing wait times, she noted.
For his part, the Japanese diplomat highlighted the strengthening of bilateral ties to materialize technical cooperation in the healthcare sector and noted that during the three years of implementation, 24 Cuban specialists received training in his country.
Nakamura also acknowledged the prestige and dedication of the Cuban doctors, nurses, and health system technicians, without whom the project would not have been possible, which he described as a demonstration of friendship between the Japanese people and government and their counterparts on the Caribbean island. According to JICA’s representative in Havana, Ashida Tatsuya, and the director of the Manuel Fajardo Hospital, Mirtha Miranda, the project also provided the selected institutions with servers and hard drives, grounding systems for nodes, fiber optic cables, display terminals, among other equipment.
The Fajardo, Miguel Enríquez, Calixto García, and Juan Manuel Márquez hospitals (in the capital) and the Abel Santamaría hospital in Pinar del Ríos (west) benefited from the Cuban-Japanese collaboration.
ef/lam/lld