HAVANA, Cuba (AP) -- Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders
                 said Wednesday that Cuba's health care system is better at keeping
                 people healthy than the U.S. system.

                 After a two-day tour to speak with doctors and tour medical facilities on the
                 communist island, Elders said she was impressed with the quality of Cuba's
                 preventative, primary health care, especially compared with the U.S. system.

                 "Cuba's is better," she said. "They work at keeping people healthy."

                 Elders said the United States still had better health care for patients who were
                 sick.

                 Cuba lacks important medicines and equipment, said many of the five doctors
                 who traveled to Cuba in the trip sponsored by the Disarm Education Fund. The
                 group has sent more than $65 million worth of medicines and medical supplies
                 to Cuba.

                 The Cuban government has long argued against the four-decade long embargo
                 against its country, and an increasing number of Democrats and Republicans
                 have called for its end.

                 President George W. Bush, however, has said he wants to maintain current U.S.
                 policy toward Cuba.

                 Elders served as the 16th surgeon general, from 1993-95, under President
                 Clinton. She was fired in December 1994 after saying at a United Nations AIDS
                 conference that discussion of masturbation should be part of sex education in
                 schools.

                   Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.