There are memories that time cannot erase and Dr. Berto Conde Fernández relives with absolute clarity the morning of July 27, 1986 when Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz arrived at the newly built Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial Hospital in Sancti Spíritus to officially inaugurate an institution called transforming health in the territory.
“Look, since they granted the province the venue for the National Act of July 26, we had that expectation. I had the opportunity to be throughout the tour, not only here in the hospital, throughout the tour, in medical sciences, in other institutions in the province that he visited. And well, the inauguration here in the hospital was a very exciting moment because that board of directors that had worked hard, that we had dedicated morning, noon and night to forming the hospital, preparing the entire facility, making the move, opening the services, well imagine you, the final inauguration was the moment we were most waiting for”.
From the perspective of the man who was then serving as deputy director of teaching and research, this is the story of a day that was forever engraved in the memory of Sancti Spiritus medicine.
“He arrived in the morning, around 9 in the morning, here at the hospital, perhaps a little later. A tour was made and when we arrived at the front of the hospital, there in front of the Central Highway, there was a signpost with the name of the centre, Camino Cienfuegos provincial hospital, in front of where there is currently a CADECA facility there at the entrance of the hospital. He had covered himself with a white cloth and then symbolically removing that cloth left the hospital inaugurated. It was high and then even though the commander… Fidel Castro was a tall man, because he was not enough and there were the members of the board of directors and with our dear director, Dr. Pedro García Alfonso, whom I remember with so much affection, was his daughter, Coralita, who also died painfully for us. And then Fidel carries Coralita, lifts her up and the girl removes the sheet.
“And he reads what the separator said. Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial Clinical Surgical Hospital of Sancti Spíritus. So, I say, Commander and teacher too, and Dr. Gómez Triana, also deceased, very dear classmate of mine, surgeon, who was the deputy director of the Guard Corps and External Services, says behind me, and also investigative. So, he addresses the people who accompanied him and those of us who were there, and he says, the mission given to this institution, to the Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial Hospital in Sancti Spíritus, is to become a centre of high teaching level and to develop. and scientific research.”
But the inauguration was only a part of that visit and Fidel’s tour of the different areas of the hospital left scenes and teachings that Dr. Berto Conte preserves intact as they would have occurred yesterday.
“First he asked how many modifications had been made to the construction project of the hospital. At the time it was inaugurated, around 400 modifications had already been made. Let’s say, if there was no door on this wall and then it was designed, that is already a modification. But then when he asked what number of scratches Pedrito, who was an extremely pleasant person in his personal treatment, had been put on the ceiling, he said, Commander, I don’t have that information, but I’ll tell you in half an hour. And so he went, he sent for the entire investment and construction team of the centre and told them the total number.
Do you think he left pleased at the end of the hospital tour?
“Yes, yes, yes. He even wrote it. He wrote it in the visitors’ book. “This hospital is fine, that says it all. He placed a work directive for him.”
Almost 40 years later, those memories continue to beat in the corridors of the Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial Hospital, in Sancti Spíritus, because in the voice of Dr. Berto Conde Fernández, a second-degree specialist in internal medicine, the testimony of a visit that marked the beginning of an institution that became a national benchmark endures.
Spanish Language Text:
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 