Outcry for Cuban Doctor to Return

Catherine Sasman

17 June 2011

IN a rare show of appreciation, former Namibian patients of Cuban Dr Luis Verges, who has returned to his country, want government negotiations to get him back. The 60-year-old Verges, who is a specialist in internal medicine with over 40 years’ experience, worked at the Katutura State Hospital for two years.

Anecdotal accounts are that Verges would consult about 1 000 patients in 20 days. His motto, said a former patient, is that no one should leave his office still sick.

Tributes and calls for his return streamed in after his departure about a week ago.

“He is a god-gifted person. He has the arms of Jesus,” is how one of his former patients described him.

Another claimed that an elderly woman confined to a wheelchair for 10 years due to arthritis can now walk.

Maria Greyton, another of his former patients, wrote: “Dr Verges did such a wonderful job with my arthritis treatment and now that I need follow-up consultations, he is not there anymore.”

Another wrote a letter to the Katutura State Hospital in which she hailed Verges as instrumental in saving her son’s life.

“My son almost died and had begun passing blood in his urine! Dr Verges, over a period of two weeks, fought for my son’s life and I will forever be grateful to him,” she wrote.

The woman, who was a patient of Verges herself, said she suffered from arthritis in the knees. In 2008 it was recommended that she should get knee replacements on both knees.

“Firstly I could not afford the surgery and secondly I felt this was not the only way. I have been receiving treatment from Dr Verges and I am glad to report that I am doing very well and walk unaided,” she said.

“It is so seldom in the history of Katutura hospital that patients come to love a doctor as much as Dr Verges for his willingness, sympathy, competency, efficiency, and very good relationship with each and every one, whether it was a patient or medical staff,” wrote Desery Freygang.

She said a cousin has received treatment for tuberculosis from various doctors over a period of four months before Verges diagnosed her with cancer after thorough testing.

“After receiving his treatment within one week she was out of the wheelchair,” said Freygang.

“I do not see why his return would be impossible,” responded the second counsellor at the Cuban embassy, Antonio Publillones.

Publillones, however, said it could take some time for Verges to get another foreign posting, since other doctors have to be given an opportunity to serve outside of Cuba.

AllAfrica – All the Time