Kingstown (St. Vincent), October 15 (NNN-RHC), -- Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has returned home from Cuba where he had received 18-day medical treatment for an injury to a muscle in his right thigh.

“It is quite an emotional occasion to see so many persons who have come out here, including the Cabinet and the Cuban Ambassador and the Venezuelan Charge d'affaires,” he told reporters at E.T. Joshua Airport.

The 68-year-old Gonsalves thanked both his Cuban and Vincentian medical team and the Cuban and Venezuelan governments. Caracas provided the aircraft in which Gonsalves and his team travelled to and from Havana.

Gonsalves left for Havana in an air ambulance on Sept 22, one day after his office announced that an injury to his right rectus femoris had seriously affected his mobility.

Gonsalves said his treatment in Cuba included walking and swimming, and a lot of physiotherapy, which local physiotherapist Denis Byram, who also accompanied him to Cuba, will continue. Gonsalves said the Cuban professionals have prescribed a particular approach.

He further told reporters that “fortuitously”, there is a CARICOM-Cuba summit scheduled for Dec. 8 and ALBA summit on Ebola on Dec. 14, both in Havana, and the Cuban professionals have asked him to check in with them to evaluate his progress.

He, however, said he might have to return to Havana in a few days for further discussions on the proposed ALBA summit on Ebola.