Norma Acosta Velázquez is a well-known health professional from Calixto who loves family medicine like few others, which opened many doors to her professional performance. “Happy to be a doctor in a consulting room and to take on this challenging but wonderful job.”
She says that her beginnings were in the Monte Alto medical office in the district of the same name, where together with two other colleagues, she took on the challenge of starting the Family Doctor and Nurse program in the Holguin municipality of Calixto García. “Intense work, only three doctors in a large area with a lot of population. There were two of us for Monte Alto and one for Mala Noche. The shifts, she says, were every 3 days. “Sometimes we went in at 8 am and we didn't know what time we were leaving for a consultation that included everything from pediatrics, gynecology, visits to the Mir maternal home, years of intense work but comforting because we received many signs of gratitude from the generally humble population and we felt happy.”
[Doctor Norma Acosta Velázquez is grateful for her training as a family doctor.] Doctor Norma Acosta Velázquez is grateful for her training as a family doctor.
She shared these and many other experiences related to preventing, curing, and above all, growing professionally by becoming the first specialist in General and Integral Medicine (MGI) in the municipality in 1994 with this reporter on the occasion of being honored during the presentation of the flag for the 4 decades of the creation of the clinic program, awarded to the municipality by colleagues from Holguin. “This banner that we have in our hands today symbolizes 40 years of a founding program of the health sector to which we gave ourselves body and soul and continues to be life itself even though we are retired today, therefore those who today take on the challenge as doctors and nurses must continue to carry out the care work, especially the preventive work, which is its essence.”
[Dr. Yilmer Aquilera Peña, (right), Director General of Public Health in the municipality, receives the flag for the 40th anniversary of the family doctor and nurse program.] Dr. Yilmer Aquilera Peña, (right), Director General of Public Health in the municipality, receives the flag for the 40th anniversary of the family doctor and nurse program.
In a nice and welcoming event held in the municipality of Holguín, the flag was presented, which will be touring medical institutions in the municipal capital this Monday and part of Tuesday. “We are pleased to receive the flag, and in a simple manner we also wanted to express our gratitude to the founders and professionals with results supported by their dedication and love for family medicine, and we took advantage of the opportunity to present the Buenaventura polyclinic with the banner that begins its journey through its institutions,” said Dr. Yilmer Aquilera Peña, General Director of Public Health in the municipality. This Tuesday, he specified: “The delivery will be made to the province of Las Tunas and so on until reaching the capital of the country.”
