Cuba Democracia y Vida

La voz en Suecia de los cubanos cívicos de intramuros y del exílio

Editor y Redactor: Guillermo Milán Reyes, Miembro del Instituto Nacional de Periodismo Latinoamericano (INPL)

For more publications in English
or Swedish click on respective
flag above

Cantidad de Visitantes: 64 106 284

Google


Enlaces :
DIARIO DE CUBA
INFOBAE
CUBANET

14 Y MEDIO. DIARIO HECHO EN CUBA.



MEDICINA CUBANA
BUENAVISTA V CUBA WEBLOG
RELIGION EN REVOLUCION.

PATRIA DE MARTÍ EN ESPAÑOL. DEL POLITÓLOGO Dr. Julio M. Shiling.

NOTICIAS MENTIROSAS. Contra la propaganda de Rusia: nuevo portal de verificación.

CIBER CUBA.
WEB DE YOUTUBE DE LA UNIÓN PATRIÓTICA DE CUBA LAS GLORIOSAS FUERZAS PACÍFICAS UNPACU.

DIARIO LAS AMÉRICAS.COM



Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos.
FOROFILO: Blog de Filosofía del Dr. Alberto Roteta Dorado.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW8puy8WjMABrA7e7FUvG-A
CANAL EVTV
LA PATILLA. WEB VENEZOLANA DE NOTICIAS.






CUBITA NAO.
EL PITAZO
PANAM POST: NOTICIAS Y ANALISIS DE LAS AMERICAS.
DOLAR TODAY
EL NACIONAL. CARACAS VENEZUELA.
ABC.ES INTERNACIONAL
EL NUEVO HERALD
EL PAÍS
FORO ANTITOTALITARIO FANTU


 

Buena Vista V Cuba

Blog de Medic Cubana

Blog de Montaner

Blog Religión en Revolución

Blog Omni Zona Franca

Patria de Martí

Cuba Ind. y Democrática

Cubanet.org

Cuba 1952- 1959



To Fight Ebola, Cuba Is Sending Its Biggest Export - Doctors. By Benny Avni. NW.
  
16-12-2014

web/folder.asp?folderID=215

To Fight Ebola, Cuba Is Sending Its Biggest Export - Doctors
By Benny Avni
Newsweek
December 15, 2014

“They were trying to get us to do the best job we could. We were told that this is very good income for the country,” said a Cuban doctor we’ll call Dr. Jose Suarez, describing instructions from his government as he prepared, five years ago, to leave Cuba for Venezuela. There he was to join up in his nation’s most prestigious, most successful and most lucrative enterprise: its physician-export industry.

Along with his wife and children, Suarez now lives in New York, having defected to the United States in 2009. He asked that his real name and personal details not be used, fearing that family members back on the island would suffer retaliation.

Cuba’s export of medical professionals has gained the Communist country much praise, including most recently from the island’s neighbor and nemesis, the United States, where top officials have praised Cuba’s response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa. The Cuban contingent of medical professionals sent to the epidemic’s hot zone was larger than any other country’s.

Suarez’s story suggests a nuanced picture behind those international accolades, in which these doctors, who bravely combat diseases and treat the poor around the world, are treated as an instrument of the state.

Cuba has trained many more medical professionals per capita than any other developing or developed country. In 2010 it had 6.7 doctors for every 1,000 citizens, according to the World Bank. In the United States in the same year, there were 2.4 doctors for every 1,000 Americans. Unlike America, however, in Cuba the government alone finances medical studies, and it then controls the careers of medical professionals.

Suarez said that when he completed his studies, the government noticed that while he had graduated with honors, he was not interested in politics and never became a member of the Communist Party.

“You have to work where they tell you,” he said. The young doctor was sent to Santiago de Cuba, a 12-hour bus ride away from his hometown at the center of the island. The ride is expensive, and each trip home ate away at his salary, the Cuban equivalent of $20 a month. A year later, he was lucky to be assigned to a hospital near his hometown.

Then came the offer to join Cuba’s medical mission in Venezuela. It was a relatively lucrative offer, and also very hard to refuse. “They prepare you psychologically,” Suarez said. “They tell you this is important for the nation, you know, blah blah blah. It all seems very benign. But if you say no, there will be retaliation. For example, if you work in a very nice hospital in the city, you will be sent back to the countryside.”

And the conditions in Venezuela were much better than back home. In Venezuela Suarez was paid $150 a month, while an additional $100 a month was deposited in his name in a bank back in Cuba. “The government evaluates your performance, and if you do a good job, you get that extra money as well,” he said.

That is, of course, only if you return to the island. Unlike many of his colleagues, whose travel documents were confiscated and kept by the government, he was considered low risk, so he was allowed to keep his passport. That helped when he finally defected. Now he practices internal medicine at a Brooklyn hospital.

No definitive figures have been published by Havana or Caracas about the financial arrangements between the two countries, which are much more complex than simply “doctors for cash.” Without Venezuelan oil, the Cuban economy would have collapsed long ago, and besides physicians, Cuba sends to Venezuela an unknown number of security officials and other professionals.

Cuba’s exportation of doctors and other professionals to other Latin American countries, including Haiti, as well as to far-off places such as Pakistan and Africa, has become a source of pride for the Caribbean country.

Cuban doctor Leonardo Fernandez in Havana on October 21, 2014, before departing for Liberia. He is among the 15,000 Cuban doctors who have volunteered to help fight Ebola in West Africa. Enrique De La Osa/Reuters 
Last July the general director of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Commerce and Investment, Dagmar González Grau, told Havana’s Popular Assembly that 64,362 Cuban professionals were sent by the state to serve in 91 countries. Three in four of those professionals are in the health sector, González Grau said, according to Trabajadores, a state-run newspaper.

The government, she added, expects those professionals to bring in $8.2 billion in 2014. By those figures, the Cuban government could be earning as much as $6.15 billion from its exportation of doctors alone.

These proceeds far exceed any other Cuban enterprise, with tourism lagging well behind in second place. Sales of Cuban staples like cigars, rum and guayabera shirts are not even close. The sugarcane industry, the pride of the country during the Cold War (though it was heavily subsidized by the Soviet Union), is no longer profitable.

When Cuba sent 256 health workers to combat Ebola in West Africa in October, Havana was universally applauded. The World Health Organization (WHO) is “extremely grateful for the generosity of the Cuban government and these health professionals for doing their part to help us contain the worst Ebola outbreak ever known,” said Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director general.

“Although I did not encounter them personally, I have to commend Cuba,” the American U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power, said after making a fact-finding trip to West Africa in late October. She noted that the Cuban government planned to send 200 physicians to the Ebola-stricken zone in addition to the initial group. “That is a big gap and a big need,” Power said.

Maria Werlau, a former vice president at Manhattan Chase Bank and founder of the Free Society Project, a nonprofit, has researched the finances of Cuba’s health system and its services-export industry. The Cuban government, she says, did well for itself by sending doctors to West Africa.

“It’s brilliant,” Werlau says. “They get money from it. They get attention. They make the impression that Cuba is a medical power,” and as a result, the government will get a lot of future contracts to send medical and other professionals “in servitude conditions” to many other countries as well.

According to Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, each doctor working in Western Africa in the fight against Ebola receives from the organization a per diem grant of $200 to $240 a day, depending on the location of service. He said that the money is deposited in a local bank in Africa so that it can be withdrawn by each physician upon presentation of a WHO-supplied approval slip.

A former health professional who still lives in Cuba and asked to remain anonymous said that she recently saw a contract that is typically presented to doctors on their way to the Ebola zone. In it, she said, a doctor is promised $1,500 a month while working in Africa, and an additional $1,500 to be deposited in a Cuban bank account, where it can be withdrawn upon return and evaluation of the work.

It is not clear whether that money comes from the per diem from the WHO—and is distributed by Cuban officials who collect it on behalf of the doctors in Africa—or is separate from the WHO money.

Cuban doctors are “sent by their government, so we do not know how that money is distributed,” said a U.N. official familiar with the international efforts in Africa, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the press.

“So what,” said another U.N. official said. “It’s just like U.N. peacekeepers. Their governments send conscripts, and they get paid for each soldier. But the troops get very little of the proceeds. Developing countries use the U.N. as a source of national income.”

Attempts to reach by phone the spokesman for the Cuban mission to the U.N. were unsuccessful, and he declined to answer an emailed question about the distribution of WHO funds. But as Cuba’s exportation of doctors and other professionals grows, there has been some pushback.

Ramona Matos Rodriguez, a Cuban doctor who was sent to Brazil, defected last summer and sued the Cuban government for damages. She said in a deposition that the government presented her with a contract promising a salary of $400 a month, with an additional $600 that would be deposited in a Cuban bank on the island, to be withdrawn by her later.

When she arrived in Brazil, however, Matos Rodrigues discovered that Brasilia pays an average of $4,200 a month for each of the 11,000 Cuban doctors working in Brazil. That arrangement leaves most of the money Brazil allocates for the doctors in the hands of the Cuban government.

The case became contentious, as the government defended the importation of thousands of Cuban doctors to serve in remote areas where “Austrian doctors, for example, wouldn’t work,” said then foreign minister Antonio Patriota. But a Brazilian union, the National Federation of Physicians, said in a statement that the arrangement resembles “slave labor,” serving no one but the Cuban government.

And this month Brazil’s federal prosecutor Luciana Loureiro Oliveira said that paying Cuban doctors a mere quarter of what the Cuban government collects for them is “downright illegal” under Brazilian law.

Cuban blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, who is a student at Brown University in the United States, says he believes the exportation of medical staff is having a detrimental effect on Cuba’s own health care system. Lazo says last year he had to tend to his ailing mother back in Cuba. “Every time I went to a hospital in the middle of the night, I found Venezuelan doctors, Bolivian doctors, students from Latin America,” Lazo said. “Where are the Cuban doctors?”

He added, "I’m not trying to make politics out of this. I would just like Cuba to help Cubans [and others] in a better way.”

____________________

 

Comentarios al artículo






 Get a new challenge


 
04-11-2023Robert Malley, key figure once behind U.S-Cuba policy and the most senior official focused on the Middle East both in the Biden and Obama administrations, is under FBI investigation, reportedly due to serious security concerns.By Maria Werlau.+videos
10-01-202263 YEARS OF OPPRESSION AND MISRULE IN CUBA. By Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet. Presidente de la Fundación Lawton de Derechos Humanos. Presidente del Proyecto Emilia. Medalla Presidencial de la Libertad.
12-02-2021The Left Confesses Its Election Sins.The executioners of this horrifically organized and plotted aberration of America’s democracy, are now in phase three: criminalizing the opposition. By Julio M. Shiling. El American.
10-01-2021The Crisis of American Democracy. By Julio M. Shiling. El American.
10-11-2020Cuba: Governmental Distortion of the Poverty Index. According to indirect estimates, 40-51% of the Cuban people live in poverty. By Marlene Azor Hernández. Diario de Cuba.
21-05-2020Cuba: The Tenaciousness of the Obsolete. By Fernando Dámaso. Translating Cuba.  
21-05-2020Cuba: Hoarding Versus Scarcity. Hoarding happens when there is scarcity. When the latter is eliminated, the former disappears. It cannot be eliminated by persecution, repression, or confiscation. By Fernando Dámaso. Translating Cuba.
30-12-2019The Voting Age in Latin America. By Carlos Alberto Montaner. LAHT.
09-11-2019A jailed Cuban activist is in grave danger. He must be released. The Washington Post Editorial Board.
01-11-2019The Destruction in Chile. By Carlos Alberto Montaner. LAHT.
29-09-2019Arbitrary Arrests in Cuba: Fact or Fiction? By Eloy Viera Canive. Havana Times/El Toque.  
25-09-2019The Case of the Cuban Diplomats Expelled from the US. By Juan Antonio Blanco. Diario de Cuba.
16-09-2019Mogherini's Visit and the EU's Deal with Cuba. By Osmel Ramirez Alvarez. Havana Times.
28-08-2019After Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. By Miguel Henrique Otero. 14ymedio.
28-08-2019Summary of a report by Cuban economist Emilio Morales. By Vicente Morin Aguado. Havana Times.
22-08-2019Cuba fails to compensate for civil aviation victims as required by law. Cuba Archive.
17-08-2019The 5 Reasons for the Success of the Embargo Against Venezuela's Maduro Regime. By Carlos Alberto Montaner. LAHT.
17-08-2019Cuba: Reform or Violence? By Juan Antonio Blanco. Diario de Cuba.
20-07-2019Cubazuelas Diplomatic Debacle. By Juan Antonio Blanco. Diario de Cuba.
14-07-2019The Day Innocence Drowned. By Yoani Sanchez. 14ymedio.
14-07-2019Venezuela Today: The Left's Eyes are Bleeding. By Caridad. Havana Times.
25-06-2019Economic Minister Gil on Accommodating Cuba's Import Mentality. By Elías Amor Bravo. Translating Cuba/14ymedio.
23-06-2019Will the Cuban Revolution Survive a New Special Period Crisis? By Osmel Ramirez Alvarez. Havana Times.
17-06-2019Venezuela, Cuba and How Political Power is Never Surrendered by Peaceful Means. By Carlos Alberto Montaner. LAHT.
01-06-2019Caracas, Between Oslo and Havana. By Juan Antonio Blanco. Diario de Cuba.
01-06-2019Cuba: The Third Time's the End. By Roberto Álvarez Quiñones. Diario de Cuba.
19-05-2019 Venezuela or How to Postpone the Crisis Using the Nicaraguan Model. By Carlos Alberto Montaner. LAHT.
10-05-2019Loyalty in Venezuela in Times of Crisis. By Carlos Alberto Montaner. LAHT.
07-04-2019Here in Venezuela We've Become Zombies. By Caridad. Havana Times.
17-03-2019Almost Two and a Half Million Cubans Didn't Vote Yes. By Ivan García. Translating Cuba.  
03-03-2019What We Gained and Lost with Cuba's Constitutional Referendum. By Osmel Ramirez Alvarez. Havana Times.
19-02-2019The Castroist Military Junta Is Above the New Constitution. By Roberto Alvarez Quiñones. Diario de Cuba.
17-02-2019Cuba: Constitutional Referendum, Food Shortage And Social Unrest. By Iván García. Translating Cuba.
13-02-2019Understanding China's Interests in Venezuela and Latin America. By Beatrice E. Rangel. LAHT.
04-02-2019The Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro is sinking. What will Cuba do? By Carlos Alberto Montaner. 14ymedio.
04-02-2019Shortages of Essential Products Worsens in Cuba. By Osmel Ramirez Alvarez. Havana Times.
26-01-2019Cuba healthcare crisis deepens 8 years after mass manslaughter at Mazorra. Cuba Archive.
20-01-2019The Multiple Ways the Maduro Regime Kills. By Miguel Henrique Otero. 14ymedio.
11-01-2019It's Going to Be a Tough Year in Cuba. By Irina Echarry. Havana Times.
11-01-2019In Bolivia, the Emperor Truly is Nude. by Beatrice E. Rangel. LAHT.
11-01-2019Venezuela: A cautionary tale. By Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarters.
08-01-2019Wealth Doesn't Only Come From Work, There's More. By Elías Amor Bravo. 14ymedio.
05-01-2019Cuba 2018: Neo-Castroism and an Economy in Hibernation. By Iván García. Translating Cuba.  
04-01-20192018 ends with Latin America trapped between hope and despair. By Beatrice Rangel. LAHT.
02-01-201960 Years of Permanent War. By Ariel Hidalgo. 14ymedio.
27-12-2018Sixty Years After the Drunkenness. By Carlos Alberto Montaner.
10-12-2018Recovering Cuba's Pre-Castro human rights legacy. By John Suarez. Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter.
20-11-2018A Very Interesting Account of Events, at a Hospital in Holguin, Cuba. By Osmel Ramirez Álvarez. Havana Times.
08-11-2018Cuba and the Power of a Just Principle. By Veronica Vega. Havana Times. 
30-10-2018Why We Must Defend Nicaraguas Bishops. By Carlos F. Chamorro. Havana Times/Confidencial.




                                       
    Eitores y Redactores  

Guillermo Milán Reyes. Artículos, Entrevistas y Documentos.

Entrevistas realizadas a Guillermo Milán Reyes, editor y redactor de esta página Web "Cuba Democracia Y Vida.org", por varios periodistas de importantes periódicos en Maputo-Mozambique, a mediados del 2004. CUBA DEMOCRACIA Y VIDA.ORG

Colaboradores:

Dr. Alberto Roteta Dorado: ARTÍCULOS Y OPINIONES SOBRE CUBA Y LA SITUACIÓN MUNDIAL.

Dr. Eloy A. González: ARTÍCULOS SOBRE LA SITUACIÓN CUBANA Y ASUNTOS RELIGIOSOS DE CUBA.

Imgemiero Químico Roberto L. Capote Castillo:

Profesor José Vilasuso Rivero. Artículos y Documentos sobre el Che Guevara.

Julio M. Shiling

Lcdo. Sergio Ramos

Domingo Lezcano, colaborador de nuestra Web CubaDemocracia yVida.ORG: ARTÍCULOS Y OPINIONES.

Referencia en línea
Diccionario, enciclopedia y más
Palabra:
Buscar en:
Diccionario de español
Diccionario de inglés
Diccionario de alemán
Diccionario de francés
Diccionario de italiano
Diccionario de árabe
Diccionario de chino (S)
Diccionario de polaco
Diccionario de portugués
Diccionario de holandés
Diccionario de noruego
Diccionario de griego
Diccionario de ruso
Diccionario de turco
Sólo en inglés:


  
 
  
 Canal YouTube
de CDV.ORG
CANAL YOU TUBE DE CubaDemocracia y Vida.org
 
 
PRESOS POLITICOS 
 
 REPRESORES CUBANOS
 REPRESORES CUBANOS 
 
 
 
 Cuba: Derechos Humanos.
DERECHOS HUMANOS : HUMAN RIGHTS

CUBA:
REPRESORES CUBANOS.
ESBIRROS CASTRISTAS
Cuba: PÁGINA PARA REGISTRAR A LOS REPRESORES O ESBIRROS DE LA TIRANÍA DE LOS CASTRO.

 Cuba: Represión.
REPRESIÓN EN CUBA

Videos de UNPACU
CUBANOS DE A PIE OPINAN. VIDEOS REALIZADOS POR LA GLORIOSA UNPACU:

Noticias sobre Venezuela:
TODO SOBRE VENEZUELA.

 Sobre el Mártir Oswaldo Payá:
OSWALDO PAYA SARDIÑAS: NOTAS DE PRENSA, DOCUMENTOS, VIDEOS, NOTICIAS.

Sobre Orlando Zapata.
ORLANDO ZAPATA TAMAYO. MÁRTIR DE CUBA. VIDEOS, ARTÍCULOS, OPINIONES, DOCUMENTOS Y NOTICIAS.

Cuba: Damas de Blanco.
DAMAS DE BLANCO

Canal VIMEO de CDV.ORG
 Canal VIMEO de CubaDemocraciayVida.org

Dr. Médico  Oncólogo
Eloy A. González
     NUEVO LIBRO:       
 “Una Patria atesorada para  
muchos y perdida para otros”

MÉDICO Y ESCRITOR ELOY A. GONZÁLEZ: EXCELENTE NUEVO LIBRO:  “Una Patria atesorada para muchos  y perdida para otros”
MÉDICO Y ESCRITOR ELOY A. GONZÁLEZ: EXCELENTE NUEVO LIBRO:  “Una Patria atesorada para muchos  y perdida para otros”

 

Haga Click en la imagen abajo para
comprar este excelente libro del
Escritor, e
Ingeniero Químico
Roberto L. Capote Castillo.

 Nuevo Libro N° 48: "Desde las orillas del Sena". Tomo XXVII. Serie “Cartas a Ofelia”. Por Félix José Hernández.

BIBLIOCUBA:  Crónicas coleccionables. Libros “Cartas a Ofelia” . Félix José Hernández

NUEVO LIBRO DEL ABOGADO Faisel Iglesias: "DOLOR Y PERDON" LA HISTORIA DE LA MUSICA CUBANA A TRAVÉS DE BENNY MORE (En español)

 Libro: "ASÍ  SE VOTA EN CUBA": Cuba es una pequeña Corea del Norte. Dijo el autor del libro Leandro Querido.

Haga CLIC AQUÍ
para comprar el libro
en la editorial de origen
.
 

ESCRITOR ELOY A. GONZÁLEZ:
NUEVO LIBRO:
Notas sobre
la religiosidad del
cubano bajo una
dictadura  prolongada.
CLICK LA IMAGEN DEBAJO

NUEVO LIBRO DE ELOY A. GONZÁLEZ: Notas sobre la religiosidad del cubano bajo una dictadura prolongada.

La Habana bien
vale unos Títulos
Por el Dr. Eloy A González.
CLICK  LA IMAGEN DEBAJO
“La Habana bien vale unos Títulos”. Una selección de artículos sobre Salud, Medicina y Educación Médica en Cuba. Por el Dr. Eloy A. González.

  Click debajo y Compre
este
hermoso libro
de Manolo Pozo.
"Aurora-Poesía": Nuevo libro de Manolo Pozo. Escritor, Periodista Independiente, fue durante 14 años columnista del periódico "20 de Mayo", Ex-Prisionero Político cubano y Miembro del Nuevo Presidio Político Plantado.

 MOVIMIENTO CRISTIANO LIBERACION
EL BLOG DE DANILO MALDONADO, "EL SEXTO".
RADIO REPÚBLICA CUBA
ATeVe
ICLEP: INSTITUTO CUBANO POR LA LIBERTAD DE EXPRESIÓN Y PRENSA.
YUSNABY POST.
CUBANOS DE ADENTRO Y DE ABAJO
PUENTE DEMOCRATICO
VIDEOS DESDE CUBA: CRIOLLO "LBERAL".
PRO CUBA LIBRE
NEO CLUB
ARCHIVO CUBA
LIBERTAD DIGITAL
TELEVISIÓN ESPAÑOLA EN VIVO. TRES CANALES EN DIRECTO: CANAL 24H, CANAL 1 DE LA TVE Y CANAL DE DEPORTE.
BLOG DEL DR. MICHAEL LARRONDO: Médicos Disidentes sin Censura.
 



Content Management System SimpleCMS

©2005-2024 Cuba Democracia y Vida.
E-mail: info@cubademocraciayvida.org