“I never had a specific vocation – Raad confesses in an exclusive interview with DIARIO LAS AMERICAS. He dedicated more time to sports. In fact, he practiced “Greco-Roman wrestling” (an Olympic style where opponents compete in battle using only weapons from the waist up). You would be surprised to know that in my town there was a very good tradition and we had several national champions of the modality – he says between pride and suspicion – But already in high school, I decided to study medicine and that sense of helping people was born. people, to be involved in health and well-being.”
Clinging to his plans, Raad studied medicine at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Las Tunas.
Viacrucis of the immigrant
“At the time of migrating I was specializing in obstetrics and gynecology at the Puerto Padre hospital. I felt suffocated by the limitations of the system, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t stay in Cuba anymore and I did, I left before the beginning of the rafters crisis” – she recalls, while trying to relive every detail.
“I was 27 years old and my wife was 25. The person who sold us the boat told us that up to 10 people could come and I wondered why he wants to put a limit on it. If I buy the boat, can’t the number of people I want go? I told my wife that we were going to come on a yacht. When we got to the coast it was a small 18-foot boat where we practically couldn’t fit. If we had gone too far, we would have sunk.”
The Florida Strait has become a kind of corridor, either of death or happiness for countless Cubans who have thrown themselves into the sea. The darkness that seems eternal, the vicissitudes, the dangers…
“It is something that one does out of desperation and ignorance – Raad says – I left La Herradura beach in that precarious boat. We had a boat skipper who later admitted that he didn’t know anything, that he had never sailed and had said yes so he could have his place on the voyage. “We were lucky to be rescued by some fishermen in the Bahamas.”
When I arrived in the US “I worked in restaurants, factories, candy stores, and I took care of an elderly person at night. Imagine, between my wife and I we had 5 jobs. I tried to do jobs in places that had to do with health to see if it would open doors for me. Until I started in a Home Health nursing agency in 1995, which taught me a lot and I was there until I decided to go out on my own and started my own company.”
Birth of a dream
“In 2004 I decided to buy the first Las Mercedes clinic which had been founded on September 24, 1971,” says Raad.
However, the turning point or explosion came in 2010 when “I joined forces with Marlon Muñoz who had experience with HMOs and this type of medical centers and Las Mercedes Medical Centers emerged.”
Raad told DIARIO LAS AMERICAS that “the idea was to create two or three medical centers, but the service was excellence and outreach to the elderly” whom they see as family, such as parents or grandparents; he defined the expansion of the project.
“They asked us to other areas. Today we have seven centers in Miami-Dade, three in Broward County with a fourth on the way that will open very soon in the city of Hollywood.”
The secret is in the facilities, in the convergence of the different comprehensive solutions to the patient’s needs. “We have incorporated all specialties, rehabilitation, optics, dental, and many others. At Clínica las Mercedes we are very jealous of those who work with us, we strive to provide constant training and training – emphasizes Raad and underlines the value of relationships between professionals and the community. People who come to see a doctor do not come because they are going to buy something or get pleasure; “They come because they have health problems, and we definitely have to be prepared to treat them with respect and affection and give them excellent service.”
“I must admit that in this growth my wife has a very important role, she helped us with administrative tasks, licenses and support. She was always there and let me say it is a 24/7 job. You never rest, at any time you receive calls on matters that you have to get involved in, family is paramount,” Raad highlights and in the pride of his four children (two boys and two girls) he gives the greatest advice to those who come to the United States.
“There are opportunities to study, to grow, this country is the greatest that exists. Improve yourselves as much as you can. “Don’t be discouraged, there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel.”
With five decades of existence, the professionals at Las Mercedes Medical Centers, guided by Raad’s leadership, pride themselves on giving patients the most precious thing that one human being expects from another, time. That is, the doctors and health personnel of this institution use the required amount of time, according to the needs of whoever is being cared for.
And since they focus on comprehensive performance, in addition to preventive medicine and monitoring of chronic conditions, Las Mercedes services also extend to facilitating and providing the social well-being of older adults who have the privilege of being cared for in their network of centers.
NULL
