Ada Kouri Barreto

Who was Ada Kouri Barreto?

Dr. Ada Kouri Barreto was an eminent cardiologist. She was the wife of the Foreign Minister of Cuba, Raúl Roa García, and mother to the Cuban diplomat, Raúl Roa Kouri.

Kouri was the eldest daughter of seven children of the prominent surgeon and Professor of Medicine at the University of Havana, Dr. Juan Bautista Kouri Esmeja and Dr. Josefina Barreto. Her siblings were Josefina, Marta Alicia, Silvia Margarita, Juan, Julio and Nejhie Kouri-Barreto.

As a young woman she was a militant of the Student Left Wing and after the March 1935 strike she joined her husband in exile in New York. After March 10, 1952, she took part in the anti-Batista movement as a physician, caring for clandestine combatants and other tasks of Civic Resistance.

During the first years of the Revolution she was the director of the Hygiene Institute. An eminent cardiologist, she was a founder in the field where she worked tirelessly until the age of 75. A member of the Federation of Cuban Women Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, the Milicias Nacionales Revolucionarias and Comités de Defensa de la Revolución.

She died in Rome where she was accompanying her son Raúl Roa Kouri at the Cuban Embassy to the Holy See, victim of a cardiac-respiratory arrest at the age of 88.