Argentines who earned medical degrees in Cuba open doctor’s office

ARGENTINE doctors who graduated from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana opened Casa Tatu, a doctor’s office for attending to residents of an extremely poor neighborhood in Greater Buenos Aires, on December 28.

Teresa Singer, general secretary of Project Tatu, thanked the neighbors who built the office on the roof of a home and explained that their dream takes its name from the nom de guerre of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna — better known as Che — when he was fighting in the African liberation struggle.

Singer highlighted Cuba’s generous gesture of training young people like her from very poor neighborhoods; 2,000 graduate every year from ELAM, coming from poor communities all over the world, sharing everything without asking for anything in return.

"Today we dedicate the opening of this office for family medicine to Argentine/Cuban doctor Ernesto Che Guevara; to the Cuban people; to Fidel Castro Ruz, and of course, to all of you compañeros," the young doctor said to enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

Project Tatu, an initiative that emerged in 2001 after young people went to Cuba to study, was implemented in 2007 in poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, even before the students completed their studies, because they believed they did not have the right to wait, according to an article published on the Cubadebate website.

Since then, they have opened 14 medical posts, oriented chiefly toward children.

One of the most outstanding activists, Dr. Alejo Moreira, an ELAM graduate, was born and raised in this shantytown built mostly of planks and scrap metal, which now has a population of 20,000, of whom 7,000 are children.

At the opening event, attended by Carlos Calica Ferrer, a childhood friend of Ernesto Guevara and his companion on Che’s second trip through Latin America in 1953, toys and candy were distributed to the children, donated from commercial and social entities through Project Tatu.