Slashdot Mirror

North Korea might not meet the mark, but the IDEAL has never been tested, has it? There is such a thing as the possibility of a non dictatorial communist government.

I've heard that Cuba works perfectly well with its communist government. I've heard that there is universal health care in Cuba, that everyone is fed AND they have not erased their land & architectural heritage with parking lots, Targets and Strip Malls.

My aunt visited the Soviet Union. They performed radial keratotomy on her eye; it was FREE, and she never had to worry about it again. On the other hand, she DID indicate that the people lived in fear. They wouldn't talk to her about anything related to politics.

I guess what I'm saying is there WERE / ?are? some good things about the Communist / Socialist countries. I don't think it makes much sense railing against them. Look for what was good about them, and learn from their mistakes, but for heaven's sake don't just throw away the beneficial lessons we can learn from them.

I can't speak much for N. Korea, since I know very little about it, but if you're poor and you need a doctor in Cuba, you're in luck. If you're poor and you need a doctor in the USA..?

search for cuba health care:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cuba+health+c are&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/inhealth.html
A bunch of people trying to help others is what shows up. Their own health is met, AND they have 2000 doctors that THEY SEND TO OTHER COUNTRIES.

search for usa health care:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=usa+healt h+care&btnG=Search
There are probably some good charities, but see what the search brings first?

Just last year I had to perform surgery on myself in the USA since my own doctor, who works for Kaiser Permanente in northern California, would not help. They had sapped me of approximately $1000-$2000 over the course of several years, and repeatedly failed to identify the problem. One day I called the doctor on the phone to ask him to renew a prescription, and his reply was "don't call and ask. Come in and visit instead, (and I quote him here) since 'we have to get our money.'" Ultimately the doctor just told me to "shove it up my..." since I couldn't afford to pay him for an extra visit just for him to renew a scrip for an antibiotic. I told him he'd have to answer to God one day, and I said "God Bless You", as a Christian is supposed to do in the face of evil. Then he changed his mind and renewed it, but he still asked me not to come back.

So I just bit the bullet and prayed alot and fixed the problem myself (with a razor blade and shakey hands). I used the antibiotics to make sure I didn't get infected after cutting myself. I was afraid I'd run out, though, since I made the cuts in the wrong places 2 times, and I waited a week in between each failed attempt to let myself heal. The third time worked, though, and finally I could sleep at night without aggrevation.

That would not have had to happen in Cuba. On the other hand, I'm not sure if it's legal to pray there.

If you live in the Bay Area you can contribute your old hardware to Infomed USA, which will pick up your refuse at your door and give you a receipt you can use for tax purposes. We accept any working Pentium-class machine as well as working monitors (14" VGA, post-1995) and send them to Cuba to be used by medical workers. Our group has sent something like 3,000 machines to Infomed Cuba, which provides on-line medical information to doctors from all over the world and technical support to Cuban doctors. You can read more about Infomed on the Stockholm Challenge award page for innovative and beneficial uses of technology.

Cuba has more doctors per capita than the United States and sends more physicians abroad to even poorer countries than the WHO (World Health Organization). Everyone on the island has free access to high quality health care (whereas in the U.S. where something like 40 million people have no access to medical care, including millions of full time workers). Cuba has the best medical care in Latin America, excellent life expectancies and infant mortality rates, and was ranked as having medical care comparable to the U.S. (39th world-wide vs. 37th) by the WHO in 2000, despite having a GNP per capita that is a fraction of what Americans spend for health care alone. Cuba also has a well developed medical technology industry that exports low cost but high quality pharmaceuticals, etc. all over the world.

Unfortunately, the United States State Department (along with Commerce & Defense) must grant export licenses so we can send hardware to Cuba and our licenses are not keeping up with Moore's "Law." Our most recent license only allows us to send 266 MHz or slower machines. Infomed-Cuba itself no longer wants our old crap, since they can do better buying their own equipment on the international market, so our next shipment will go to 5 Cuban hospitals, some of whom are still using 286 machines, I understand. However hopefully Bush won't be president forever, so we are stockpiling better machines until we can get a license to ship them.

To schedule a pickup email Dave if you live in the South Bay, Don in San Francisco or Ed if you are in the East Bay or North Bay. Also, we can also use anyone who can twirl a screwdriver to help us test and fix up the donated boxes. We have regularly scheduled work days in both Oakland and San Jose. Drop us a line if you'd like to pitch in...

If you live in the Bay Area you can contribute your old hardware to Infomed USA, which will pick up your refuse at your door and give you a receipt you can use for tax purposes. We accept any working Pentium-class machine as well as working monitors (14" VGA, post-1995) and send them to Cuba to be used by medical workers. Our group has sent something like 3,000 machines to Infomed Cuba, which provides on-line medical information to doctors from all over the world and technical support to Cuban doctors. You can read more about Infomed on the Stockholm Challenge award page for innovative and beneficial uses of technology.

Cuba has more doctors per capita than the United States and sends more physicians abroad to even poorer countries than the WHO (World Health Organization). Everyone on the island has free access to high quality health care (whereas in the U.S. where something like 40 million people have no access to medical care, including millions of full time workers). Cuba has the best medical care in Latin America, excellent life expectancies and infant mortality rates, and was ranked as having medical care comparable to the U.S. (39th world-wide vs. 37th) by the WHO in 2000, despite having a GNP per capita that is a fraction of what Americans spend for health care alone. Cuba also has a well developed medical technology industry that exports low cost but high quality pharmaceuticals, etc. all over the world.

Unfortunately, the United States State Department (along with Commerce & Defense) must grant export licenses so we can send hardware to Cuba and our licenses are not keeping up with Moore's "Law." Our most recent license only allows us to send 266 MHz or slower machines. Infomed-Cuba itself no longer wants our old crap, since they can do better buying their own equipment on the international market, so our next shipment will go to 5 Cuban hospitals, some of whom are still using 286 machines, I understand. However hopefully Bush won't be president forever, so we are stockpiling better machines until we can get a license to ship them.

To schedule a pickup email Dave if you live in the South Bay, Don in San Francisco or Ed if you are in the East Bay or North Bay. Also, we can also use anyone who can twirl a screwdriver to help us test and fix up the donated boxes. We have regularly scheduled work days in both Oakland and San Jose. Drop us a line if you'd like to pitch in...

If you live in the Bay Area you can contribute your old hardware to Infomed USA, which will pick up your refuse at your door and give you a receipt you can use for tax purposes. We accept any working Pentium-class machine as well as working monitors (14" VGA, post-1995) and send them to Cuba to be used by medical workers. Our group has sent something like 3,000 machines to Infomed Cuba, which provides on-line medical information to doctors from all over the world and technical support to Cuban doctors. You can read more about Infomed on the Stockholm Challenge award page for innovative and beneficial uses of technology.

Cuba has more doctors per capita than the United States and sends more physicians abroad to even poorer countries than the WHO (World Health Organization). Everyone on the island has free access to high quality health care (whereas in the U.S. where something like 40 million people have no access to medical care, including millions of full time workers). Cuba has the best medical care in Latin America, excellent life expectancies and infant mortality rates, and was ranked as having medical care comparable to the U.S. (39th world-wide vs. 37th) by the WHO in 2000, despite having a GNP per capita that is a fraction of what Americans spend for health care alone. Cuba also has a well developed medical technology industry that exports low cost but high quality pharmaceuticals, etc. all over the world.

Unfortunately, the United States State Department (along with Commerce & Defense) must grant export licenses so we can send hardware to Cuba and our licenses are not keeping up with Moore's "Law." Our most recent license only allows us to send 266 MHz or slower machines. Infomed-Cuba itself no longer wants our old crap, since they can do better buying their own equipment on the international market, so our next shipment will go to 5 Cuban hospitals, some of whom are still using 286 machines, I understand. However hopefully Bush won't be president forever, so we are stockpiling better machines until we can get a license to ship them.

To schedule a pickup email Dave if you live in the South Bay, Don in San Francisco or Ed if you are in the East Bay or North Bay. Also, we can also use anyone who can twirl a screwdriver to help us test and fix up the donated boxes. We have regularly scheduled work days in both Oakland and San Jose. Drop us a line if you'd like to pitch in...

If you live in the Bay Area you can contribute your old hardware to Infomed USA, which will pick up your refuse at your door and give you a receipt you can use for tax purposes. We accept any working Pentium-class machine as well as working monitors (14" VGA, post-1995) and send them to Cuba to be used by medical workers. Our group has sent something like 3,000 machines to Infomed Cuba, which provides on-line medical information to doctors from all over the world and technical support to Cuban doctors. You can read more about Infomed on the Stockholm Challenge award page for innovative and beneficial uses of technology.

Cuba has more doctors per capita than the United States and sends more physicians abroad to even poorer countries than the WHO (World Health Organization). Everyone on the island has free access to high quality health care (whereas in the U.S. where something like 40 million people have no access to medical care, including millions of full time workers). Cuba has the best medical care in Latin America, excellent life expectancies and infant mortality rates, and was ranked as having medical care comparable to the U.S. (39th world-wide vs. 37th) by the WHO in 2000, despite having a GNP per capita that is a fraction of what Americans spend for health care alone. Cuba also has a well developed medical technology industry that exports low cost but high quality pharmaceuticals, etc. all over the world.

Unfortunately, the United States State Department (along with Commerce & Defense) must grant export licenses so we can send hardware to Cuba and our licenses are not keeping up with Moore's "Law." Our most recent license only allows us to send 266 MHz or slower machines. Infomed-Cuba itself no longer wants our old crap, since they can do better buying their own equipment on the international market, so our next shipment will go to 5 Cuban hospitals, some of whom are still using 286 machines, I understand. However hopefully Bush won't be president forever, so we are stockpiling better machines until we can get a license to ship them.

To schedule a pickup email Dave if you live in the South Bay, Don in San Francisco or Ed if you are in the East Bay or North Bay. Also, we can also use anyone who can twirl a screwdriver to help us test and fix up the donated boxes. We have regularly scheduled work days in both Oakland and San Jose. Drop us a line if you'd like to pitch in...

The schools don't want it...What are they going to use your Pentium 133 for, anyways?

In the SF Bay Area you can call Project Infomed, which will send some poor schlemiel to collect your old Pentium or better computer and even give you a receipt so you can take a tax deduction. We send the donated machines to Cuba, where they are used by healthcare workers to access medical databases and research, locate supplies, communicate etc. Though we have a new license application under review, for the moment the Departments of Commerce, State and Defense won't let us send anything faster than a Pentium 200, since putting that much raw computing power in the hands of Cuban doctors could endanger the security of the Free World. Right now I'd say that the average machine that we are sending is about a Pentium 120 with 32 MB of RAM and a 850 MB hard drive. They will probably continue using these old boxes for many years. So far I believe we have sent about 2,500 computers to the island.

We can also use anyone who can volunteer a little time to twirl a screwdriver or schlep hardware at our regularly scheduled work sessions in San Jose and Oakland.

I work with a Bay Area group called
Infomed that fixes up donated Pentium class computers and sends them
to Cuba, where they are distributed to medical clinics, allowing health care
workers to access medical databases, journal abstracts, data on supplies and services, email, etc. And unlike the ACCRC we will even pick
up working machines and won't charge you $5.

You can contact us at dave@cubasolidarity.net to arrange a pick up in the
South Bay or biow@cubasolidarity.net if you are located in the East Bay,
North Bay or San Francisco.

We can also use help fixing up the donated machines, if you are so inclined.
However, unlike ACCRC, we don't put an operating system on the machines; we just make sure
the boxes are posting (with sufficient RAM, drives and occasionally NICs
and modems) and that the hard drives are formatted to protect the donors'
privacy.