-DATE-
19881007
-YEAR-
1988
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
INTERVIEW
-AUTHOR-
F.CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
CASTRO DISCUSSES HOSPITAL, FACTORIES
-PLACE-
HAVANA
-SOURCE-
HAVANA TELEVISION SVC
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19881012
-TEXT-
Discusses Hospital, Factories

FL0710170388 Havana Television Service in Spanish 0000 GMT 7 Oct 88

[Excerpt] Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, first secretary of the PCC
Central Committee and president of the Councils of State and Ministers,
today inaugurated the rehabilitation unit at the William Soler Hospital
Cardiology Center in Havana.  This medical unit started operating in July;
it possesses excellent conditions for the recovery of the young patients.
The commander in chief was interviewed by our colleague, Oscar Suarez, at
the end of the visit.  They talked about national and international issues.

[Begin recording] [Castro] Well, this unit is of special quality.  It means
going from 52 to 82 beds.  The cardiology center cost several million
[currency not specified].  With this kind of investment, we have 30 beds
more.  You can see the facilities available to the mothers here.  The
children don't have to spend more than 5 or 6 days.  Sometimes they come
early and are occupying a bed.  They can come here instead while all the
tests are underway.  Those are beds for surgery patients.  For the first
few days they don't have to stay at the hospital.  They can come here; they
are more comfortable because the mothers can sleep in their rooms.

This institution is very comfortable and very humane, because when the
children are in the hospital, there's no room for beds for the mothers.
This one is a hospital hotel!  Thirty additional beds! We are now going to
build the hospital's intensive therapy ward in another area.  This is
because when the cardiology center was built, the intensive therapy ward
of the William Soler Hospital was built in the cardiology center.  Since we
are now going to build the hospital's intensive therapy ward elsewhere,
this will free 20 more beds.  The cardiology center, the biggest in the
world with 52 beds, will have 102 or 104 beds [someone says "112"] It's 112
beds because there were already 8 there.  We now have 92.

[Suarez] Among the many social and industrial projects underway in the
capital.... [changes thought] Because there's a lot said about social
projects but not much has been publicized about the industrial projects,
and I feel that the city is also making big strides in that area.

[Castro] Yes, very publicly.

[Unidentified reporter] You (?visited) several industrial projects in
recent days....

[Castro, interrupting] Well, not as many as I would have liked.

[Reporter] You went to the bus factory....

[Castro, interrupting] But I did not ask a group of comrades to go visit
all the mechanical industry plants.  I have a lengthy report, a rather
voluminous report, on the 44 main plants.  I am going to read it.  I gave a
copy to the ministry.  It's a report detailing the various problems, their
assessment of each one of those 44 factories.

I visited the one in Guanajay.  I then went back the next day because I
wanted to pay a more leisurely visit.  The first day I had to leave right
away.  I came back the following day to observe another factory under
construction there.  I observed it was behind schedule.  It is being built
by the SIME [Steelworking Industry] itself.  However, the same group is
working at Antillana de Acero, an important investment; it is working at
the Cuba-USSR Friendship Engine Plant.  It is working at the engine block
factory under construction in La Lisa.  So, the SIME is working on several
projects and does not have sufficient manpower.  I said that the
provinces,the whole country, needs to provide more support, because the
project I am talking about is big, very important; it's a big shop, a big
factory to produce the metal sheets used in building buses, which is today
done by hand.  There's 6.5 million pesos in equipment from socialist areas.
We are going to have a big plant to work metal by means of a very productiv
technology.

So, the foundation has been laid.  Those people needed some material, some
equipment, some labor.  I visited the place.  I was accompanied by Lexcano
[first party secretary in Havana City Province] and by Comrade Lemus [first
party secretary] of Havana Province.  A decision was made to take a number
of steps that will be implemented shortly.  Therefore, civilian
construction will be given a big boost there.

[Suarez] How do you feel when you visit projects, enterprises, and the
workers only talk to you about needing material, parts, raw materials to
work with?  How do you feel?

[Castro] Well, it is a feeling of satisfaction, because we can see a more
mature collective, many of them young people whose basic concern is
production.  They are enamored of their production and their factory.
There's a very important psychological element, which in my opinion has not
been sufficiently exploited, not sufficiently taken advantage of, in
socialism.  That element is the capacity of man to become enamored of his
production, of his work, of his industries.

You can see a lot of this in ExpoCuba, if you go over there.  ExpoCuba is
really impressive,.  It is being built in record time.  It is going to be
very useful to the country.  You see people there working 12 or 14 hours.
They come from a center where they had worked 6, 7, or 8
hours--theoretically--and they refuse to leave because they are enamored of
what they do.  Anyone who has seen it go up knows that what he is seeing is
truly phenomenal.  Just as the sculptor falls in love with his sculpture,
with his work, the construction worker also falls in love with his project,
the industrial worker falls in love with his factory, with is product.  He
approaches things with honor, morals.  It is an element that has not been
sufficiently used.  In my view, it is a decisive factor.  [passage omitted]
[end recording]
-END-