-DATE-
19651108
-YEAR-
1965
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
SPEECH
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
DEDICATION OF THE LENIN HOSPITAL
-PLACE-
HOLGUIN, ORIENTE PROVINCE
-SOURCE-
HAVANA DOMESTIC TV
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19651108
-TEXT-
CASTRO SPEAKS AT LENIN HOSPITAL DEDICATION

Havana Domestic Television and Radio Services in Spanish 0334 GMT 8
November 1965--F

(Live speech by Prime Minister Fidel Castro at the dedication of the Lenin
Hospital in Holguin, Oriente Province)

(Text) Members of the soviet delegation headed by the deputy minister of
public health of the Soviet Union, members of the diplomatic corps, comrade
doctors and stomatologists, comrades to be graduated as doctors who are
present here (applause), and other university comrades who will accompany
the doctors to the Turquino peak and whom we should not forget (applause),
and Holguin residents:

This is the second occasion on which we gather in this city to inaugurate a
work (word indistinct). We do not always gather the people when a
revolutionary work is completed; it would be harder each time because we
hope that more works will be finished. As you know, several hydraulic works
are being built in this province, and we will have to commemorate some of
these works too--that is we will have to celebrate, but it will be
impossible to gather the people at each of those occasions. However, we are
commemorating these two times--the first when the school city Oscar Lucero
(applause), which used to be a military fortress of the enemies of our
nation, was inaugurated, and today the inauguration, on 7 November, of the
Lenin Hospital. Both works mean, they symbolize--the inauguration of the
Oscar Lucero city symbolized the tremendous revolution in the education
field which was starting in our country, the conversion of fortresses into
schools, the end of the tyranny--the beginning of culture and education for
the people.

This work means a great deal. In the first place, it symbolizes a beautiful
act of proletarian internationalism, because this hospital has been
constructed with the generous cooperation of the Soviet Union, which
donated (applause) the equipment for the hospital. Like the comrade from
public health said, at first, in 1960 we were thinking about a 450-bed
hospital. After that it wad decided that the needs of this Oriente region
were larger. But when the equipment for a 450-bed hospital was requested,
the equipment for this hospital was offered and donated.

When the change was made and the equipment was doubled, well, there was not
enough equipment for 450 beds and naturally the Minister of Public Health,
which I believe did very well, did not ask again for another donation for
double the number of beds. But it took care of this (Castro chuckles) with
the same resources it had in order to increase the capacity of the
hospital.

This is really something which symbolizes the solidarity and friendship
existing between our two nations. Naturally that solidarity and friendship
has not been shown solely by the donation of the medical equipment for a
hospital. That equipment has relatively small value in relation to the
total value of the hospital. The solidarity and friendship of the Soviet
Union with us cannot be measured in figures: we have received solidarity
and aid in matters essential to our revolution in the decisive moments of
this revolutionary process.

If we were to talk about figures, there are incomparably higher figures
regarding military equipment received by our revolution (applause); the
enormous efforts made at certain times to supply us with certain articles;
and the extraordinary aid--as was the case of the petroleum--we received so
we could survive in the face of the imperialist blockade. This is why I say
that it is essentially symbolic, for its human aspects, for its useful
aspects, for its direct benefit to an important part of the population of
our country, that this cooperation has taken place in the construction of
this hospital.

This is why--though not just because of this, this is partly why, and
partly because it is a very just action of gratitude, because it is a very
just action of recognition of its historic merits--this hospital, a symbol
of international fraternity and solidarity, bears the beloved and glorious
name of Lenin. (applause) It is dedicated on this 7 November to pay homage
to the 48th anniversary of the October Revolution. (applause) The October
Revolution and the name of Lenin preside over this ceremony: his portrait,
his memory (preside over the ceremony--ed.)

In those glorious days, which were also arduous and difficult, in which the
first socialist state in the history of mankind surged forth, it would have
been difficult for Lenin to have had the time to imagine that 48 years
later, on a small island located thousands and thousands of kilometers
away, in a region of that island someday a hospital such as this one, which
symbolizes what this hospital does, built with the help of that state which
was born on that day, would bear his name (applause)--but thus it is, and
this means a lot. It means that the day is not distant when his task and
his work will be universally recognized, that the day is not distant when
in any corner of the world, any school, any hospital, any park, or any
factory will bear the name of Lenin. (applause)

This dedication also symbolizes the triumph of a policy in the field of
public health. It means the moment when this province, and in particular
this region of this province, passed from the most abject indigence to a
situation which may well be called so satisfactory that it may be said that
a similar level does not exist in any other nation of this continent.

Comrade Machado cited some figures and drew comparisons, but in practice
comparisons cannot be made. One cannot compare what we have today with what
we had yesterday. One cannot compare what we have today with what we had
yesterday. One cannot compare something with nothing. And the medical care
in this province, and especially in this area of the nation, was almost
nonexistent--a few doctors, a few beds, and you already know what it took
to get medicine in that hospital, for one to get some medical attention in
that hospital, for any peasant or any worker or any poor family to be
admitted to any of those hospitals. If such a person did gain admittance,
if they resolved a problem for him--because while hospitals were being
built in this country, with the modern equipment that this hospital has,
when hospitals were built with the medical services and special available
and if at any time a hospital in Cuba made them available (applause), it
was not a hospital for the humble men and women of this country. (sentence
as received--ed.) When a hospital was being constructed with certain
resources--not like this one, because we can say with complete satisfaction
that never did the capitalists, even the millionaires of this country, have
such a hospital as this one (applause) it was not built to care for a man
or woman or a child, an old person, a newborn child of the people.

That is why when a work such as this is undertaken, the people's
satisfaction is justified because it is a work of the people, for the
people; it is not a donation by the Revolutionary Government to the people.
The Revolutionary Government administers in the name of the people and
administers the resources of the people. (applause)

We did not come here to say that we have not given anything. We have come
here to demonstrate that what we have done is what the people have done,
what the people are able to do, and what they will be able to do in the
future. We have come here to show what can be done on the revolutionary
path. We have come here to show what our workers can do, what our
technicians can do, because that hospital had to be planned and a work of
that magnitude could not be planed to extraordinarily well unless our
Ministry of Public Works had a team of men who were truly enthusiastic, who
were truly capable and truly creators.

The work could not have been achieved without the alertness and enthusiasm
of our construction workers. It could not have been achieved by our Public
Health Ministry unless there was also a competent team which was capable of
saying how this hospital was to be constructed. It could not have been
achieved if we could not count on such excellent teams of physicians who
were truly humane and truly revolutionaries disposed to work for their
people. (applause)

It must be said that in this process of self-improvement, the social makeup
and, above all, the revolutionary makeup of our physicians has been
changing drastically. To the same degree that all those doctors who
demonstrated they did not have a vocation for being doctors and began to
desert the ranks of their people and to quit their homeland, to that same
degree the physicians with stronger vocations, the physicians who were more
humane, because increasingly more conscious and increasingly more
revolutionary, and to that same degree new teams of physicians joined the
ranks of our people and the ranks of our physicians. This has permitted the
nucleus, the strength, the mass of conscious and revolutionary physicians
to grow and become increasingly greater in the body of our doctors. Thanks
to that process, by virtue of which this revolutionary society is purifying
itself, by virtue of that magnificent principle, this is a society of free
men and for free men who freely want to belong to it. (applause)

From the beginning of the revolution we have authorized the departure of
those who wish to leave the country (applause and cheering), a departure
which was never interrupted by us and, as the whole world knows, was
interrupted by the U.S. Government, which not only stopped the flights that
had always existed between Havana and Miami, but which also tried to
suspend all the other flights between Cuba and any nation.

Today when those doors were opened--because they could no longer remain
closed after our proposal on 28 September--today when those doors, which we
wish were wider (applause and cheers), those doors whose basic defect is
that they are not wide enough because the 3,000 or 4,000 per month,
regrettably, could jam that door (applause), because it is relatively
small--but naturally, we are not the ones who have any say as to those they
will allow to come in or not-- now that those doors are opened, although in
a limited way, there will also be those who, although they are doctors,
want to leave for that country.

There are stories about this which sometimes becomes anecdotes. Some
doctors have been leaving all these years, in limited way, among those who
had permission to leave, some hundreds or so every year, between 150 and
200. Now, naturally, there were some of those who had asked for permission,
plus some others who might ask for permission. But the anecdote to which I
was referring is that some of these cases are really comical. Some doctors
who had asked for permission to leave would not leave for a year, two
years, or even three years, and then suddenly they would arrive at the
Public Health Ministry with a thousand excuses that they must leave,
although they did not want to go, but their wives wanted them to go!
(applause and cheers) That has actually been the case. (Castro laughs)

There are many anecdotes about which the Public Health Ministry has many,
very interesting details (Castro laughs), but we are not going to publish
them. No, we are not going to get involved in those marital problems which
may force a doctor to leave (Castro chuckles), and at any rate it shows the
influence of the feminine sex (crowd noise), which is well-employed is a
fine thing but if ill-used will take away a doctor who on many occasions
goes against his will, because you can have that type of woman. However,
it's not because of this that we are going to think that the wives of
doctors are counterrevolutionary, or anything of the sort. (Castro
chuckles) There will also be doctors who will not go because their wives
tell them that they do not want to go. (crowd laughter)

However, this weird situation concerning whether 'I need some cosmetic, or
'I need this or that' naturally, produces certain irritation and certain
things. Fine, many times the matter of cosmetics and all the other things
causes them to go to the United States and they do not have a miserable
centavo with which to buy them (crowd laughter), because the situation of
the doctors in the United States is quite well known. Some have had to work
as elevator boys. Not that it's bad to be an elevator boy. Many men and
women work as such and this is honorable work but certainly this is not
something which some of those who leave quite expect.

Others, as a newspaper story had it, had to choose between (Castro aside to
someone: What did it say?) (someone answers in a low voice: between Vietnam
and) between Vietnam and (Castro aside: What else?) (Someone else answers:
the plants, the factories) between the factories and Vietnam. In other
words, some of these women who drag their husbands over their to Miami
could well become widows (Castro laughs) at any time because they have no
assurance that their husbands will not be drafted and shipped to Vietnam.

But, fine, we do not want to make a campaign to keep him from going. We
think that anyone who does not have the vocation of a doctor, anyone who
does not have the profoundly humane makeup of a doctor, should have (Castro
fails to complete thought). We think that anyone (Castro again fails to
complete thought). When an end was put to the miserable condition of
medicine in this country; when an end was put to the situation of thousands
of children in this country who died in epidemics every year, the hundreds
of children who died or who became disabled by poliomyelitis; when the
resources allocated to medicine have been increased five times, almost six
times in this country, when medical care is no longer for the privileged
alone, not for the wealthy alone; when medicine is practiced increasingly
without distinction of any kind, for each man and woman of the people;
those who think it just at this moment to leave the nation--these people,
and I say it with all honesty, they should leave! (Castro gestures angrily
at this point--ed.) (cheers, loud applause)

But we are also thinking about something else. There are those who are
asking for permission in order to protect their backs--'just in case I can
go because I'm on the list, just in case, I'll bide my time, and if it
suits me, I'll stay." Well, no.

We believe--and since there have been some who have really been in the
position of blackmailers--'well, the truth is that it's a problem with the
house, if I get a house, I would convince my wife (laughter from crowd) if
they give me a house, if I get an automobile for this or that reason' and
'if they get me a little car.' And also some: "I may go or I may stay."
(sentence as heard) of course, who are they injuring? They know that if the
Revolutionary Government worries them it's because we are concerned over
the needs of the people. They know that if it may hurt the Revolutionary
Government (Castro pounds the point home--ed.) it's because the needs of
the people hurt the Revolutionary Government. This is why they try to
blackmail the revolution. And as I was saying that as far as those who, in
order to protect their backs, as for permission 'just in case,' we feel
that no, we feel that when their time comes, their turn comes up, they
should leave anyway! (cheers, applause)

They are not going to be weak with their wives and bear with the
revolution. (laughter, cheers from crowd) In such cases--and really we are
not even throwing anybody out, nor do we think it is a correct policy ever
to do anything to throw anyone out, or to make impossible situations for
anyone, and let it be well understood--we feel that at this point, having
gone this far, we feel that this is the correct policy.

Some leave and some come in. Some leave and get on a list and more than 400
new doctors who began to study with the revolution (applause) will
graduate. (applause) Doctors and stomatologists will graduate (applause) on
the 14th (of November-ed.) on Turquino peak, in another extraordinary
symbolic (applause) and revolutionary graduation. (applause)

Some go downhill on the road of life without principles, demoralized, while
others go uphill and what is important is that those who do uphill not only
are greater in number but also much better than those who go downhill.
(applause)

On a day like today our people (word indistinct) have the right to feel
satisfied, content, and happy that this hospital is beginning to operate--a
hospital with the most beds in the nation, the most modern of all, a
hospital which means safety for this region of the province and peace of
mind for families.

On a day like today we can speak in such terms and we can speak with all
the contempt they deserve about those who desert the honorable ranks of the
doctors, of the medical workers, of those who have sworn to dedicate their
lives to bring health to the ill, to save lives, to alleviate pain, who
deserve such high esteem from our people.

The days will come because the days come, the days come one after the
other, we (Castro does not complete thought--ed.). Each time we went to
Holguin we looked at the hospital and we asked ourselves: When can we
dedicate it? When will it be completed? One of the first architects who
worked on it became ill and unfortunately died and could not see the
hospital completed; others continued with the project. In yet another
example of international fraternity, a Mexican architect came to our
country on a visit and liked our country and wanted to learn about our
revolution first hand. He was the one who was in charge of the project the
last two years and the hospital construction came to a very successful
conclusion under this technical direction. (applause)

(Shouts from the audience: Castro answers) That would be a good test. (More
shouts and applause) This helps us to understand a little better the
principles of our revolution, that the borders of our nation are not on
that tenuous line which could be drawn on a map pointing out the contour of
three mils and all the coasts of our country. Our borders are not
geographic borders; they are class borders, revolutionary borders,
ideological borders. That is why when this nation asks someone if he wants
to leave, we do not prevent it. You are free to leave. This country does
not lose a citizen. Why? Why will that citizen never be considered a
revolutionary or a citizen of this country from our revolutionary
viewpoint, our Marxist viewpoint? When a man full of revolutionary zeal
comes to work here and to know our experiences, to help us create, and to
progress, we will consider that man, from whatever part of the world he may
come, a citizen of this country. (applause) Because our borders, we repeat,
are not in the field of geography, our borders are in the field of ideas.

We consider all revolutionaries of the world as brothers. We do not
consider ourselves compatriots or anything like that of any reactionary
person, or any citizen of any reactionary country, no matter where he was
born or where he may live. Our situation, as I was saying, is that of
knowing how to wait for one day after the other, and I was giving you as an
example the hospital. The day came when the hospital was started. The day
has come when the people from Holguin and the citizens from the northern
coast of Oriente can come to their hospital.

I also stated that the day would come then those people who are weak and
without conscience, without scruples, will not exist. The day will come
when, as a result of the advance and progress of the revolution, those
self-purifications which we have today will no longer be necessary in this
nation. The masses of technicians, in every sense of the world, will
increase in number, will be more conscious, more revolutionary.

That is our future, quite clearly. And those who think they are doing us
some harm, those who think they are leaving us crushed when they leave the
country, are going to experience a small disappointment, a slight
disillusionment, because that will not halt the revolution, it will not
stop the march of the people. The people will be increasingly
revolutionary, increasingly aware and profoundly revolutionary, and the
masses will be increasingly behind the revolution.

I would like to know what (word indistinct) impression they would get, some
of those people who leave the country in such a cowardly fashion, if they
could just for an instant, through a little crack, as the saying goes, see
this ceremony today, with this motive, (applause) this tremendous crowd.
They would be forced to ask themselves, they would have to wonder, why, why
facts do not conform to their selfish wishes, why facts do not conform to
their inhuman sentiments, to their reactionary sentiments.

For the very reason that we are doing here today, for this, which
characterizes the work of the revolution, which is not the work of a
handful of men, but the work of a people, of the great majority of the
people, who used to be the oppressed majority, the long-suffering majority,
the forgotten majority, the exploited majority of the nation. (sentence as
heard) Those who really knew trouble were the poor, and above all the poor
in our rural areas, the poor of our provinces, those who had to earn a
living in the big sugar plantations, those who had to earn a living under
the worst imaginable conditions. They are the ones who understand; they are
the ones who, with increasing vigor, with increasing firmness, with
increasing determination, understand and support the revolution, which is
their revolution. (applause)

Naturally, there is much for us to do, there is much work for us--our needs
are immense--right here. If anybody stands on La Cruz hill he will find, in
the neighborhood of this new and modern hospital, thousands of humble
little homes, practically huts, because with the exception of a few houses
belonging to middle class people in the cities, our cities too were made up
of thatched palm huts, and most families in this city live in thatched
houses, and anybody who travels by plane or helicopter over the city of
Bayamo will see that there, too, most families live in palm houses and
huts.

When we built this hospital we aspired to bring greater health, to preserve
the people's health. But we will preserve it still better when not a single
city is left without sewers, when a single city remains without a water
system, when not a single city remains without streets, when not a single
family is living in unhealthy conditions--that is, when we can have a
decent house for every family in our rural and urban areas.

But our country suffered from centuries of poverty, centuries of want,
centuries of exploitation, centuries of ignorance. The revolution comes to
rescue us from that centuries-old want; the revolution means to change to
shake off that burden we inherited from the past; it means the opportunity
to set to work for the future, and in that future it will be necessary to
work a great deal, it will be necessary to strive hard. Today there is one
project here, another there. Last night we visited the work on the Las
Villas stadium; today we passed near a similar stadium in Camaguey. But
when a stadium is built, the need for schools becomes obvious, as does the
need for housing, and the fact that we have many other needs.

Our cement, 800,000 tons, is barely sufficient. That output will be
speedily increased. Within a very few years it will more than double, and
it will continue to grow. Every time I see a project, I ask how much cement
it took. I asked how many sacks had gone into the Las Villas stadium. It
took 100,000 sacks, that is, over 4,000 tons of cement. And I always
wonder: How many stadiums like that could we make with all of a year's
supply of cement? How many hospitals like this could be built with a year's
supply of cement?

Naturally, one must also ask oneself: How many schools can be built with a
year's supply of cement? How many houses can we build with a year's supply
of cement? But above all, we ask ourselves: How many dairies, how many
bridges, how many hydraulic projects, how many factories? Because
naturally, if we use all the cement for stadiums, hospitals, and schools,
then we would lack cement for everything else. We would even lack cement
for building cement plants. This according to mathematics, and here
everybody will soon be in the sixth grade and understand this reasoning
perfectly.

For we are a poor country, an underdeveloped country. This country's
economy was stagnant for more than 30 years. The people of Oriente know
that not a single new sugar mill was built for 30 years, that no capacity
was expanded. The people of Oriente know all too well how the population
increased, more and more, and yet the same cane and the same economy had to
serve to feed a steadily growing population. And since that economy
scarcely sufficed to satisfy the idleness, the luxuries, and the privileges
of a minority, very little was going to be left for this country.

What would have become of the country at the rate it was going? The people
of Oriente understand this well, and they understand that now we must
struggle and work with perseverance, with tenacity, but with unshakable
firmness and with absolute faith in order to get rid of the burden of our
past.

We shall still have to strike many blows of the machete in cutting cane and
we shall have to make considerable effort in our agriculture in order to
attain the goal of 10 million tons of sugar. We shall have to make a great
effort building dams, establishing irrigation ditches in order to insure
our agriculture against the imponderables of rainfall. You know that
rainfall has been irregular and scarce in these provinces this year. You
know that this will oblige us to do much better work during the next
harvest, to obtain greater sugar yields, to see to it that not more than 48
hours elapse between the time the sugarcane is cut and the time it is
ground by the mills.

You know that a greater effort will have to make both in industrial
production and in the cutting of cane so that the months of highest
production coincide with the maximum production in the mills. This means
that in order to counteract the effects of scarce and irregular rainfall we
shall have to make a very specially organized effort for the forthcoming
harvest--planting and cultivating sugarcane for the 1967 harvest in order
to attain our goals, progressing with our hydraulic works so that we can
have greater agricultural security with each passing year, going ahead with
our plans for fertilizer production in order to raise the yield of our
sugarfields, of our orchards, of our vegetable and root crops, and the
yield of our pasturage, and continue with the revolution's agricultural
program. For it is not only with hospitals that we avoid and combat
disease.

I was saying that it is not only with hospitals, with doctors, not only
with hygienic housing, not only with healthy living conditions that disease
will be avoided to an increasing degree, but to a degree that we improve
our nutrition, to the degree that we are able to consume more milk, more
fruit, more vegetables, more meat, more eggs, more fish, more food and
better food. Sometimes we farmers tell the doctors that we can emulate, and
that in the future we farmers will produce more health than the doctors,
and I believe that our doctors are perfectly convinced that this is true,
particularly because since the revolution more emphasis has been placed on
preventive medicine than on curative medicine.

Our common desire, farmers and doctors, is that in the future no one will
have to go to a hospital, that is, that illness will be prevented.
Naturally, this cannot be carried to an absolute degree, but we mean that
our medicine must become more and more preventive and a very important part
of preventive medicine is adequate nutrition, (?useful) nutrition, and we
shall attain this to the extent that we develop our agriculture, to the
extent that we make our fields produce more, to the same extent that we
make our work yield more. We believe that we have said enough (word
indistinct).

May the works like this that we can inaugurate be more and the speeches
fewer; may the acts be increased and words decreased. We exhort the
comrades of public works and the Hydraulic Institute to do all possible to
begin also to complete (?a series of works) and the hydraulic works of
Oriente Province begin to function so that floods can be prevented and we
can be guaranteed against droughts, allowing us the highest production, and
we can commit ourselves to inaugurate more. I am not going to say (few
words indistinct) because it is almost completed and it is a work which is
going to satisfy an important need for the city of Santiago de Cuba.

We have to do a great deal for agriculture, to have a prompt completion of
the first of the big dams, either that of Paso Malo or that of
Contramaestre, (?El Mate), or any other, but let these works which our
agriculture so greatly needs be advanced. We are inaugurating one and the
others are being completed. This is nothing, just a little inauguration. We
have been preparing for the time when instead of 800,000 tons of cement we
shall have 1 million, 3, 4 million, and we shall complete a work every day,
a factory--I will not say little works, as this year we are producing
approximately 2,000 dairies, that is, about six a day, but they are little
works--I mean works like this, works like the Oscar Lucero, educational
center, works like the dam of Paso Malo, like the (?El Mate) dam, like the
IMPUD, like any of the works, like the thermoelectric plant of Santiago de
Cuba, which had been forgotten, or the thermoelectric plant of Mariel.

All these works, as you know, are indispensable for our economic
development. Those who have visited this hospital have been able to see an
infinity of equipment of all types. Well, some machines are without
electric current, the equipment is not functioning, machines are not
functioning, many machines, many machines with which the production of
material assets are produced. That shows the importance of these basic
works: the thermoelectric plant, the cement factory, these works such as
are being produced in (?Nueva Evita) and other places of the country.

All this will give us more resources. The more cement we have, the greater
problems we can solve, the greater number of problems, the greater
constructions we can carry out. The more electricity we have, the greater
kinetic force we have for production, for the different types of service--I
think that the people understand this more all the time, because the people
formerly (?had to face politicking). They were told of (?group)
aspirations, of personal aspirations; they were even asked to support a
coup (?or for votes, or were deceived). When they came to enter a hospital,
a political figure asked: Do you wish to vote for so and so, do you wish to
register in a certain party? You must give me your identification card.

When the revolution inaugurates a work like this, where hundreds of
thousands of services are given, where thousands of persons, tens of
thousands, will recover health, where thousands will be born, in the best
conditions, where thousands of lives will be saved, the revolution, when it
opens a hospital like this, does so without requisites of any kind, without
conditions of any kind, unless it be the requisite and condition of needing
this hospital.

Socialism wants to say this; communism wants to say this: To give to every
human being what he needs, and if a man requires any expense, any
operation, to save his life--but not even to save his life: to save a hand,
to save a finger, to keep this man from losing his finger on his hand or
his sight, or life, merely because he lacks a few miserable pesos which
others have (?denied him) at the cost of exploitation of others--socialism
wants to say this; communism wants to say this (applause): That every man,
every woman, every old person, every child may have what he needs, not more
than he needs. No, those who want to have more than they need only want to
have more than those who do not have what they need.

Socialism and communism aspire to insure that every man, every human being
has what he needs, and with the work of man, with the productivity of our
work, with (word indistinct), human society can produce sufficient to
satisfy all the needs of the human being and there will be no freer
society, no superior society, no more just society, no more humane society,
no happier society. This is the path that the revolution outlines; this is
the objective that the revolution seeks, and it seeks it tenaciously, with
faith, with effort, with work, with sacrifice, without demagoguery, without
false promises, because those who promised as though they were supermen, as
if it depended on them whether the people had or did not have things--that
is not the concept which we have brought here. We have come to say what the
people can have if the people wish, if the people desire, to exhort the
people to go along this path, to seek happiness with their effort, with
their sacrifice, with their work.

These are the truths which we revolutionaries have come to tell the people,
and fortunately the conditions as they were before the revolution are far
behind--the corruption, the demagoguery, the lies, the politicking. The
revolution has opened the path of justice, the revolution has opened the
path of truth, the revolution has opened the path of the future. This is
the path which is followed today with pride, with satisfaction, and with
firmness by our people, ready to eradicate all (word indistinct) which the
past bequeathed to us--ignorance, poverty--and (to forge) the future with
their work, with their heroism.

We wish for the people of Oriente, for the Holguin inhabitants, the best
service from this hospital. We want our doctors to make an effort, we want
the functioning of this hospital--and we have not the slightest doubt that
it will be so--to equal the effort which the workers made, the effort which
the builders made, the effort which the fraternal Soviet people made in
facilitating the equipment for it. (applause) We want the hospital to give
the people the best services and we want the number of those who have to
come to hospitals to become increasingly fewer, because preventive medicine
is gaining the battle over curative medicine.

Fatherland or death, we shall win!
-END-