MIAMI.- Different organizations announced this Wednesday a joint program to send missions of doctors Cubans and other nationalities living in the United States to other countries, as a way to counteract the brigades negotiated by the regime of Cuba with other nations, in unfavorable conditions for the island’s medical professionals.
Julio César Alfonso, founder and director of Solidaridad sin Fronteras (SSF), said in a press conference that “this is a day that will make history in the Cuban exile,” after which he explained that the initiative could benefit more than 33,000 doctors. coming from Cuba, plus the same from different nationalities, “who will not go to work as slaves.”
In Alfonso’s opinion, the medical missions sent by the Castro-communist dictatorship to various countries constitute “your highest economic income“, even above “the tourism line.” “That is a form of human trafficking,” he added when describing the program that the Havana dictatorship has been running since the 1960s.
Some complaints indicate that the Cuban doctors who make up these groups They only receive around 15% of the total that the regime receives. Additionally, they sign a commitment to return to the island nation when the mission ends and, in the event of desertion from the program, they are not allowed to return to Cuba to reunite with their families.
Missions
Alfonso explained that to develop the program, “direct contacts” are being made with the governments of Latin American countries, among which he referred to Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Argentina and Peru, among others.
For his part, Alexéi López, from the Green Cross Team organization, added that “this is a real and tangible alternative to what a medical mission is, not what Cuba has done with missions that only serve the interests of the government.” “That is human commerce,” he pointed out.
The SSF and Green Cross Team brigades, which have the support of other institutions such as Prisoners Defenders and some Florida political leaders, could last between seven months and two years, according to López.
Likewise, Javier Larrondo, president of the Prisoners Defenders organization, highlighted that the Cuban doctors sent to other countries are victims of rights violations humans.
Larrondo cited resolutions from the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the European Parliament that condemn the treatment offered to doctors in that program.
“In addition to this medical function being carried out in slavery, 1,400 testimonies from 49 countries analyzed show that the regime keeps 87% of what this program produces, in addition to the fact that doctors perform their work below the level of poverty in the country that receives them,” he stated.
He assured that there is evidence that the contracts signed by the Cuban dictatorship are between 20% and 40% above what a local doctor charges, which, in his opinion, “is a big scam.”
Legislative project
Meanwhile, López exalted the nature of the initiative as a “way of practicing medicine without intermediaries” and a mechanism to “favor the reintegration of many doctors who cannot work in the US in their areas of work.”
Indeed, one of the difficulties for a large number of health professionals of various nationalities, who today live in the United States, is the impossibility of being able to work due to not meeting some requirementssuch as the revalidation of the title or the period of residence for one year.
For this reason, former state senator Daphne Campbell, who was also linked to the program, said that she has been promoting a bill “so that many doctors do not have to take the bar exam.”
“These doctors were important during the COVID pandemic and there were no requirements asked of them,” he said, and then wondered aloud: “Why can’t they work as doctors now?”
The legislative proposal advancing in both state chambers would, among other things, eliminate the one-year residency requirement for doctors with degrees from another country who meet certain criteria.
