«I do not want to waste my lucidity in useless rest»
Doctor Luisa Gainza González shared in a conversation with Granma details of her large and fruitful professional life.
Madeleine Sautié | madeleine@granma.cu
December, 2025
Dr. Luisa Gainza González Works actually in the Granma newspaper medical consulting office at the age of 83. Picture: Juvenal Balán
In explaining who we are, often, words are redundant. Then, what is to be done, how do we proceed together with those we walk with and tell us more than a biography or the story they themselves can share.
We saw Luisa meeting with the workers of our center when we were preparing ourselves to parade on May first. Later, with a great team of our newspaper, she joined the agriculture volunteer work team convened by the Party. Many of us thought about her but nobody dared to tell her that at age 83 the work will be too tough for her, and nobody dared because you can sense the strong will emanating from her and we believed she might not easily accept such recommendations.
Doctor Luisa Gainza González Works in the consulting room of our center, called University polyclinic Dr. Cosme Ordóñez, of the Square of the Revolution (Plaza de la Revolución). We went there to talk with her and on the table there was an envelope that she said she searched for a few days earlier, as soon as she learnt about our interest in listening to her.
The documents she treasured are proof of her many achievements and her long medical career, a life of giving to others. She has been 16 times National Vanguard in the National Union of Health Workers, three times fulfilling internationalist missions in Ethiopia, Angola and Venezuela. She has also provided services at the Provincial Directorate of Health and at the University of Havana, in national and international events of the House of High Studies and she has given a number of conferences outside of Cuba about the Cuban Health System.
Carefully kept, we also find medals and distinctions, among them the Medal of Literacy Campaign, the Medal in Commemoration of the 40 Anniversary of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (of Cuba) and carefully kept the distinction Jesús Menéndez, the distinction Manuel Fajardo Rivero and August 23rd.
«I always wanted to be a doctor, but when I studied the career that I started in Santiago and finished in Havana, I had already graduated as a primary school teacher at the Normal School of Santiago de Cuba. Those were times of clandestinely and my mother was director of that school and when a teacher was missing she asked me to substitute. So I studied and graduated but my passion was always medicine».
Those distant memories dusted, Luisa remembers her professional life full of stories and anecdotes. In all of them there is, however, a common theme: her satisfaction in knowing that the patient who leaves is not the same one who arrived after sharing with a professional who listens, explains and supports him or her in fighting disease.
The doctor remembers many patients in foreign lands «always hopeful and humble, impacted many times by the presence of a doctor because some of them have never seen one before».
In her there is a spring that challenges rest. «I always respond to all calls, even those having to do with directors; sometimes I would like to be able to relive those challenging experiences because they have been very enriching», she says. This is why «I continue working despite my years of service and my advanced age. With me is that impetus and clarity, I do not want to waste them in useless rest».
After a reflexive silence, she says: «I still feel I am capable of bringing and returning a smile, and some hope, to all those who look for it to preserve their health, with the professional support of a doctor».
Translation by NSCUBA (Nova Scotia)
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