A Cuban primary health care program, proposed by Fidel Castro in 1984 and known formally as the Programa del Medico y la Enfermera de la Familia, which began as a pilot on January 4, 1984, at a polyclinic in the Lawton neighborhood of Havana with ten doctor and nurse pairs. The program's model, sometimes called the Physician for 120 Families Plan, stations a doctor and nurse team in the neighborhoods they serve, in office buildings, apartment blocks, schools and rural communities, with each team responsible for a defined local population and reporting to a district polyclinic. It expanded rapidly nationwide and is described by researchers as the first program of its kind to deliver primary care at no cost to patients, on a universal basis, as part of a fully integrated national health system.
Facts
Target Population20 to 40 families per family doctor-and-nurse office, organized under community-based polyclinics 2 Health GoalMonitor individual and family health through home and community visits, with biannual risk assessment using the Continuous Assessment and Risk Evaluation (CARE) method 2 Geographic ScopeCuba, extended nationwide from its 1984 Havana pilot 1 Measured ResultsAbout 33,000 family physicians nationwide, at a ratio of one family physician per 2,500 people 2 Program status (class) Classification
Program KindHealth Education Program 1 Connections
Associated With
Delivers Practice
Entity-backed identity for the program-kind enum value this public health program already carries, resolved to a health practice by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The program-kind fact itself stays on the program unchanged.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Cuba, found in there.
Sources
1. Granma: Family Medicine in Cuba, an Achievement of the Revolution
Granma (official voice of the Communist Party of Cuba)Granma retrospective, 26 June 2018, founding paragraph
the family doctor and nurse program, also known as the 'Physician for 120 Families Plan,' began as a pilot program on January 4, 1984, at a polyclinic in Lawton neighborhood, in the Havana municipality of 10 de Octubre, with ten pairs of doctors and nurses, who formed basic teams to provide care to 600-700 people.
Granma retrospective, 26 June 2018, expansion paragraph
Due to the results achieved, the program was extended throughout the country and before the end of 1984, there were already 237 family doctors enrolled in a new medical specialty: Comprehensive General Medicine.
View the Source 2. Family Health Care Model: A Lesson to Be Learned from the Cuban Health Care System (PMC)
PubMed CentralPMC journal article, care-tier paragraph
The first is the family doctor-and-nurse offices which take care of 20-40 families; located at the second level are the community-based polyclinic for every 30,000-60,000 populations
PMC journal article, care-model paragraph
The team monitors individual and family health by examining community and home environments, current health, and medical history and performs health diagnosis biannually using Continuous Assessment and Risk Evaluation (CARE).
PMC journal article, staffing-figures paragraph
As of now, Cuba has about 33 000 family physicians and the ratio of the family physician to a person in the community was 1:2500.
View the Source 3. MEDICC Review: Cuba Family Doctor-and-Nurse Teams, A Day in the Life
451 polyclinics and 11,548 Family Doctor and Nurse offices operatingView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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