Cuban Medical Slavery
"When you leave Cuba for the first time, you discover many things that you had been blind to. There comes a time when you get tired of being a slave."
"You are trained in Cuba and our education is free, health care is free, but at what price? You wind up paying for it your whole life."
Yaili Jimenez Gutierrez, 34, Cuban doctor, Minas Gerais State Brazil
"The end of the program [by the U.S. to welcome Cuban doctors] was a huge blow to us. That was our way out."
"It was a pretty acceptable offer [to leave Cuba for Brazil, finance-wise, initially] compared to what we made in Cuba."
"We began to see that the conditions for the other doctors were totally different. They could be with their family, bring their kids. The salaries were much higher."
"It's sad to leave your family and friends and your homeland. But here we're in a country where you're free, where no one asks you where you're going, or tells you what you have to do."
"In Cuba, your life is dictated by the government."
Maireilys Alvarez Rodriguez, Santa Rita, Maranhao, Brazil
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| Part of the over 7,000 Cuban doctors working in Brazil. Photo: Juvenal Balán/granma |
Cash-strapped Cuba has garnered an enviable reputation as a country that trains more doctors than it could possibly have use for within the country itself. And the purpose of all those redundant medical professionals is to farm them out to other countries in need of what Cuba has an excess of. Contracts are signed between the host country and the services-providing country and young doctors are persuaded to further their life-saving careers abroad where they gain experience, are honoured, and in the process do a great service to their country of origin.
Cuba receives $3,620 monthly for each doctor they send to Brazil. At the present time, 18,600 Cuban doctors work in Brazil, out of the 18,000 doctors from Cuba who have completed their contract time in the country. Great satisfaction is felt that this program, according to the United Nations, has significantly lowered the infant mortality rate in Brazil, while extending care to indigenous communities served by the presence of these Cuban doctors.
When Dr. Alvarez was first recommended to go abroad by the Cuban government the offer was a stipend that appealed to her and to her husband, Arnulfo Castanet Batista, another doctor. They would have to leave their two children in the care of relatives after signing up, but each would earn 2,900 Brazilian reals monthly, to the value of $1,400 compared to $30 monthly they would earn in Cuba, although that original $1,400 is now worth $908.
"There is no injustice", Brazil's health minister Ricardo Barros stated. "When they signed up, they agreed to the terms." He speaks here of lawsuits launched in Brazil by a number of Cuban doctors. A year ago a Cuban doctor had a conversation with a clergyman in a remote village. Arriving at the conclusion of her three-year medical assignment, Anis Deli Grana de Carvalho having married a Brazilian man wanted to remain in Brazil. When the pastor learned what the government pays Cuba and what the doctor received, he introduced her to a lawyer. She sued. Other doctors followed.
Brazilian lawyer Andre de Santana Correa analyzed the contracts coming to the conclusion they were not compliant with the equality provisions in Brazil's Constitution. Justices issued temporary injunctions but a federal judge ruled that allowing Cuban doctors to walk away from their contracts represented "undue risks in the political and diplomatic spheres". The Cuban doctors were immediately fired, each invited to fly back to Cuba within 24 hours, or face an eight-year exile.
Dr. Alvarez and her husband had the good fortune to keep their jobs and be granted a large pay raise, enabling them to bring their children to Brazil. But Dr. Jimenez has been unable to find work since she was fired and now she is barred from Cuba for an eight-year period. Mr. Barros, Brazil's health minister feels the Cuban doctors were not poorly compensated; their salaries equal to what Brazilian doctors earn during residencies.
Labels: Cuba, Economics, Medicine
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, October 10, 2017
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