The young specialist in General Comprehensive Medicine, who graduated in intensive care and adult emergency, works in the town of Büyükyapalak, in the municipality of Elbistan, Kahramanmaraş province, where he noted that he was in the right place.

Mederos is one of 32 Cuban healthcare collaborators providing aid in that nation as a member of the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics, following the devastating earthquakes that shook the country and on the border with Syria on February 6.

A report on the website of Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health noted that the doctor coordinates the group of eight medical professionals, who together with an interpreter provide medical assistance to patients in Büyükyapalak.

The municipality of Elbistan was one of the epicenters of the tragedy that killed more than 42,000 people in Türkiye and more than 5,000 in Syria.

‘We are three doctors, three nurses, an epidemiologist, a psychologist, plus the interpreter,’ this young Cuban collaborator wrote on social networks.

He is on his first mission as a member of the Henry Reeve Contingent, in which, he said, he always wanted to be, but never imagined his first experience in a disaster of such magnitude. The work at the clinic is quite a lot and on a daily basis, he pointed out, while highlighting how people already recognize that he is there for them. They call us “Cuban,” “doctor,” they pass by in their cars and whistle at us and greet us with their hands on their chests as a sign of gratitude,’ he stressed.

jg/arm/mgt/crc.