There will be little rest for Kwazulu-Natal’s 307 Cuba-based medical students. In a statement on Monday welcoming them home for the July-August school holidays‚ health MEC Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo said they would “be deployed to health care institutions throughout the department’s 11 health districts in order for them to get an opportunity to observe patient care”.“If our students get to visit the clinics and hospitals‚ they will observe the disease profile in South Africa and that will assist them a lot when they complete their training and return to South Africa to begin serving as medical doctors‚" said Dhlomo. He had praise for Cuba which “has excellent health outcomes as a result of their primary heath care approach”.“This has allowed them to eliminate some diseases like malaria‚ TB and others‚” said Dhlomo.“Because of strong health education and health promotion‚ people in Cuba only develop hypertension and other non-communicable diseases quite late in life.”Cuba’s partnership with South Africa‚ Dhlomo said has a massively significant impact on alleviating the shortage of doctors in this country.The partnership has its roots in a “co-operative agreement” signed in 1996 by the late Nelson Mandela and former Cuban President Fidel Castro.Dhlomo said that 907 KwaZulu Natal students that had been sent to Cuba since the inception of the programme.“Of these‚ 789 are still attending‚ and 88 completed the training programme. But unfortunately four of them have passed on. We also have seven students returning who will be graduating on July 907‚ 2015 in Cape Town.”The South African students will return to Cuba in a staggered process‚ with the last group leaving on 06 September 2015‚ the statement said.-RDM news Wire..