Review by Kiefer Doerksen.

Salud! draws comparisons between Cuba's free universal health care system and the privatized health care prevalent in both developing and developed nations. It criticizes the exporting of educated doctors from countries such as South Africa where their services are needed locally. Cuban doctors are portrayed as great humanitarians, traveling around the world to where they are needed to help set up clinics, hospitals and medical schools at low pay and in harsh conditions. They are taught to be at the service of the community, sometimes before looking after their families. Special programs are in place to make sure that impoverished people from areas less desirable to other doctors are trained and sent back to their hometowns to look after health care locally.

Overall director Connie Field tends to paint Cuba in an overly-rosey manner with no mention of the political situation and little reference to the poverty experienced by most Cubans. While the Cuban health care system is shown as a gold standard for medical systems there is no exploration into why so much of the rest of the world works on a different system. Salud! is an enjoyable and informative film but it would have benefited from a little more balance.

Salud!
Connie Field | USA | 2006 | 90min

Wed. Oct. 10 | 7:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre
Fri. Oct. 12 | 1:15pm | Vancity Theatre