A 2014 PAHO resolution that Cristian Morales helped formulate serves as a framework for the Americas’ governments to actively work towards health for all their people, incorporating this aim into national programs for sustainable development. This September, the UN General Assembly will sponsor a High-Level Meeting on Universal Health . . . a first in its history. In part two of MEDICC Review’s interview with Dr Morales, he outlines strategies he believes vital for transforming health systems to reach universal health—defined as coverage and access for all—and for turning words into action.

Cristian Morales, an economist by training, has dedicated his career to improving health and health equity in the Americas through his work with PAHO/WHO. This has taken him from floods and earthquakes in Haiti to PAHO’s Washington DC offices, where he was instrumental in achieving consensus on a resolution aiming for universal health—coverage plus access—approved by all governments in the Americas. Since 2015, he has served as PAHO/WHO Permanent Representative in Cuba and has recently been appointed to the analogous post in Mexico. At the end of his three years in Havana, MEDICC Review talked with Dr Morales about his experience, the Cuban health system, and the values it shares with the organization he represents. This is part one of the interview, the second part to be published in our January 2019 issue, in which we’ll talk more about the health system in Cuba itself, its achievements and also its challenges.

He was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, but his family is Cuban. After 1959, they returned to the island, where Dr Mitchell Valdés received his medical degree at the University of Havana in 1972. He went on to study clinical neurophysiology, earning his PhD with a dissertation on the auditory system’s sensory physiology. When the Neuroscience Center opened (as part of western Havana’s Scientific Pole). he became its director, a post he holds today. Dr Valdés, a Distinguished Member of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, is widely published and has collaborated with colleagues in dozens of countries, including the USA, UK, Italy and Holland. He is a full professor of clinical neurophysiology, sits on Cuba’s National Coordinating Group for Persons with Disabilities, and serves as an honorary professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. What brought me to his office is the set of symptoms reported by some two dozen US diplomats in Cuba and more recently in China as well. And the controversy surrounding what might be the root cause—a topic that has crossed the line from medicine into politics. MEDICC Review’s intent was to hear from Dr Valdés on the science pertinent to the controversy.