# An honorary mention is awarded in Angola to Cuban orthopedic surgeon Wilfredo Ramírez

**Date:** 01/23/2021

After four years, Cuban doctor Wilfredo Ramírez concludes his mission in Angola with two awards for professional excellence, which today demonstrate the gratitude of this African people.

Both distinctions took the specialist by surprise, according to the first-degree specialist in Orthopedics and Traumatology and in Comprehensive General Medicine (MGI), native of Siboney, in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba.

He only expected to say goodbye to the authorities of Moxico and his colleagues at the general hospital in that province in the east of the country, giving a summary lecture on the results in treating children with congenital deformity of clubfoot.

A fascinating topic for him, which years ago was the subject of his thesis in Orthopedics and of intense clinical and scientific work for four years in Moxico, due to the high prevalence of the pathology.

The Honorable Mention delivered by Governor Gonçalves Manuel Muandumba and the Certificate of Merit from the General Hospital, from the provincial health department, attest to the high esteem.

With 22 years of work experience, Ramírez had never before worked in Africa, 'but in our medical brigade there are specialists who have served in other nations of the continent and that helps with the exchange of knowledge, since we face diseases that don't exist or are very rare to see in Cuba,' he expressed.

The clinical work here is difficult; many people, he explained, tend to resort first to traditional home remedies and when they arrive at the hospital they generally present a complicated situation, in the case of his specialty, due to orthopedic trauma pathologies.

THE CHILDREN

Shortly after arriving here I realized there was a large number of cases with foot deformities, even in adult children without useful social lives, with the sadness of being the subject of constant mockery, as happened to one of my patients,' recounted the surgeon.

From a scientific point of view, it was also something unprecedented for him; he had never before corrected clubfoot in adult children, only in numerous babies up to one year of age using the Ponseti method.

The experience with three adult children who had well-established deformity, 'was something tremendous, they are already walking, in the rehabilitation phase,' said the expert.

Over the course of four years, he operated on 52 minors for clubfoot, 98 percent with results between excellent and good, only two had a negative outcome because they abandoned treatment, apparently due to the economic difficulties of their families in paying for periodic trips to the provincial hospital from distant municipalities.

Although the specialty in MGI offers broad preparation, Ramírez had to devote himself to his studies, review the latest in international medical practice, when the Angolan management of the general hospital in Moxico asked him to urgently operate on infants with cranioencephalic trauma, since he was at that moment the most qualified to take on the challenge of saving their lives.

Promoter of scientific activities in the territory, the expert also did not waste opportunities to teach and learn during daily work to redirect clinical practices, improve the organization of orthopedic services, the reception and treatment of polytrauma patients.

'Constant teaching, in the handover of shifts, in the ward, in daily exchanges with hospital management…,' this is how the award-winning doctor illustrates another aspect of his sense of professional duty and affection for the Angolan people.

THE RETURN

In his service record in Angola, there are approximately 800 surgeries in four years, more than 60 or 70 percent performed solo, at the beginning 'there was no other orthopedist in my hospital,' he clarified.

These days he is being sent off with a mixture of sadness and joy, they know he needs to return; on the largest of the Antilles, María del Pilar Gutiérrez and other family members are waiting for him, he has not been to Cuba for two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and 'missing my mother and my children is something difficult,' he acknowledged.

He will leave Angola as a Moxican; 'I told the journalists at the ceremony with the governor; medical missions cannot be reduced to the provision of services, they must serve for the integration of peoples, for sharing cultural knowledge'.

The identification as a native of Moxico or another point on the African geography came from the people; many came to call him a joker or liar when he would clarify: 'I am a Cuban doctor'.