Cuban Doctors are Sent to Brazil Without a Stopover in Cuba

Cuban Doctors are Sent to Brazil Without a Stopover in Cuba / Juan Juan
Almeida
Posted on July 20, 2015

Juan Juan Almeida, 25 May 2015 — To ease the growing popular discontent,
soften Petrobras' recent and resounding scandal and regain credibility,
President Dilma Rousseff, taking into account that "improving health"
was the principal demand during the June 2013 demonstrations, wants to
repeat history. She has asked the Cuban authorities to increase the
number of physicians in order to help strengthen the "More Doctors"
program and calm the majority who, as always, are the most needy.

According to official figures, up to April 2015, the health project
"More Doctors" counted 18,247 professionals in more than 4,000
municipalities. And I celebrate this: healthcare should be the right of
everyone without exclusion; it's a pity that commercialization puts at
risk the lives of those who can't pay for lack of resources. It's
difficult not to consider the Brazilian request, which, although clearly
without half-measures, conveys a clear Party intent, requiring the Cuban
Government to send only experienced doctors. But the Cuban rulers, using
and abusing an effective disloyalty, without consulting the Bolivians,
respond without delay to the chords of this samba, even affecting the
long-term commitments they have with the Venezuelan health programs.

So it is, because to earn money, the Cuban State always remains more
open than the doors of an airport restaurant. This past Saturday, May 9,
from a poorly lit corner in the office of the Cuban Ministry of Public
Health, Roberto Tomás Morales Ojeda released a signed circular directed
at each manager of ASIC (Areas of Integral Public Health) in Venezuela,
and at the managers of the medical missions in the different states, so
that through their CENREC and the Centers of Attention (or vigilance)
collaborators, they contact, with strict discretion, the first Cuban
doctors, who, by the sole fact of having the approval of State Security,
already have been selected to travel directly to Brazil without the need
to return to the Island or embrace their families.

The doctors selected have the right to say no, since — according to this
document — some of them have already fulfilled the time of the "mission"
and are waiting for their relief; but, like subliminal blackmail there
is a catch: they have to give a written argument explaining the reason
for their refusal.

The list of names is extensive. It includes specialty, medical category,
passport number, identity card, province of origin and more. But for
obvious motives of security and understandable ethics, in addition to
protecting my sources, it's not prudent for me to publish the document
in question in total.

Those interested, above all those who have family members working in the
Cuban medical mission in Venezuela, can contact me. I have in my hands
the list of the Cubans chosen, who, without even knowing it, have
already been selected; and during this whole week, from today the 18th
up to the 22nd of the current month, they will be convened and ordered
to accept transfer to this new mission, "More Doctors for Brazil."

The motive is convincing; the logic is repugnant.

Translated by Regina Anavy

Source: Cuban Doctors are Sent to Brazil Without a Stopover in Cuba /
Juan Juan Almeida | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/cuban-doctors-are-sent-to-brazil-without-a-stopover-in-cuba-juan-juan-almeida/