In a four-day visit that ended this Friday (28), the director of Science and Technological Innovation of the Cuban Ministry of Health, Ileana del Rosário Morales Suarez, expressed her intention to sign cooperation and exchange agreements with Unicamp in at least a dozen themes.
Ileana del Rosário informed that Cuban institutions are interested in deepening the medium and long-term collaborative actions to be carried out between Unicamp and Cuban ministries, universities and research centers, on topics ranging from the medical field to the cultural sector.
Member of the Department of Public Health at Unicamp and executor of an agreement between the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) and the University of Havana, professor Sérgio Carvalho recalls that research fronts are already under development in areas such as public health policies, systems health – especially in the field of primary health care – and training of health professionals.
Ileana del Rosário said she had started negotiations for the implementation of a project that aims to deepen the foundations of Unicamp's collective health programs and Cuba's public health programs.
This joint program would have as its basic elements the concepts of community health, in which the so-called “social determinants” must be taken into account: aspects such as poverty indicators, inequity, vulnerability, racial issues, gender issues, specific aspects of women's health, chronic diseases, aging, etc.
Because of this, the project would involve experts in anthropology and social scientists and would guarantee the implementation of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity systems. “This is not to say that the biomedical issue is not important, because it is extremely important, but to think of health as a social production”, said the director. “Professor Ileana also brings us an absolutely thought-provoking question, which is the post-covid world. The determination to think about life and identify problems whose solution will require actions beyond the health system”, added professor Sérgio Carvalho.
Information exchange
The director says that there is also interest on Cuba's part in exchanging information on the training of health professionals. According to her, this training process in Cuba has some differences in relation to Brazilian teaching.
The Cuban medical professional, says the director, is oriented towards the practice of basic care from the first years at school. “We have a lot of experience in primary care, but we also want to exchange information about innovative technologies and discuss issues such as patents and publications,” he said. In Cuba, medical schools are linked to the Ministry of Health and not the Ministry of Education.
Other themes
Ileana del Rosário says she sees other possibilities for interaction on health issues – such as tropical medicine, microbiology and epidemiology; on issues of climate change, demography, nutrition and what she calls planetary health – which is the relationship between human health, animal health and the environment.
Furthermore, says the director, there are prospects for cooperation in various fields of the cultural sector – covering the areas of music and visual arts.
Ongoing projects
The representative of the Cuban government was also at the Coordination of Interdisciplinary Research Centers and Nuclei (Cocen) at Unicamp, where she learned about a series of projects that are underway at the University.
The interdisciplinary research system was presented to the Cuban delegation by Ana Carolina de Moura Delfim Maciel, coordinator of Cocen, and Raluca Savu, deputy coordinator.
"The deputy chief of staff, Adriana Nunes Ferreira, invited us to present the Cocen System because Ileana already works with the perspective of interdisciplinary projects. She is a person from the health area, but she also came here with the mission of expanding the possibilities of partnerships, incorporating other fields of activity. It was a very inspiring meeting for everyone who participated in it. She not only listened to proposals from the centers and centers [at Unicamp], but also suggested several ideas. We identified many connections, far beyond what we imagined", said Ana Carolina Maciel.
Direct channel
The visit also served to establish a direct channel of communication between Unicamp and the Cuban government with the aim of promoting the articulation of partnerships and the implementation of exchanges.
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Cocen receives Director of Science and Technological Innovation from the Cuban Ministry of Health
