Monday, February 6, 2017

Government Invites Doctors Who Fled To Return To Cuba

Government Invites Doctors Who Fled To Return To Cuba / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Miami, 3 February 2017 — The Ministry of Public Health
released a statement Thursday in the official newspaper Granma to
reiterate the willingness of Cuban authorities to take back health
professionals who have "defected" from medical missions abroad.

The announcement comes three weeks after the outgoing U.S. president,
Barack Obama, eliminated the Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP)
program. This initiative, established during the Bush administration in
2006, facilitated the arrival in the United States of more than 8,000
Cuban doctors who were in other countries.

In 2014 the Cuban government, for the first time, offered health
professionals who had defected, or tried to, a chance to rejoin the
national system

"This kind of offering is not new," said Yisel, a comprehensive general
practitioner who left the island in 2015 via Ecuador. "The national
health system has run out of workers because of the way they exploited
us." She currently resides in Miami.

In 2014 the Cuban government, for the first time, offered health
professionals who had defected a chance to rejoin the national
system. The following year, Granma published an extensive article where
medical personnel were guaranteed a similar job location to what they
had before leaving the country.

"Including those victims of the deceptive and vulgar practice of
brain-drain," said the Communist Party organ at that time.

"Nobody wants to return because what they offer is the same thing that
we had," explains the doctor.

Wages were raised in March 2014. Today, doctors in Cuba earn $60 a
month. However, after the massive export of health services,
professionals who remain on the island have to work double shifts in
hospitals and working conditions have significantly worsened.

"The international medical collaboration that Cuba provides has as its
principles volunteerism and the integral attention to the needs of the
personnel inside and outside the country," explains the official
note. In addition, it adds that those who work abroad "are guaranteed a
stipend, health care, food, accommodation and air and land transportation."

The Cuban government has been heavily criticized in international forums
for the conditions under which it signs agreements to contract for the
employment of its medical staff. Most of the earnings, which the
authorities acknowledged amounted to $8.2 billion in 2014, remain in the
hands of the Cuban state.

According to the note published by the official press, there are three
types of collaboration agreements: "one in which Cuba assumes the
expenses, another where it shares them with the receiving country and
the third in which they are paid."

The Ministry of Health explains that the resources obtained from the
work of the doctors are used to support the national health system and
offset the expenses of Cuban solidarity missions.

The note does not mention the twenty Cuban health professionals who are
in immigration limbo in Colombia after escaping medical missions without
knowing about the suspension of the CMPP.

Hundreds more awaited the processing of their refugee applications in
other countries and await an American US visa in precarious conditions.

Currently, more than 50,000 Cuban health workers are spread across 60
countries in missions mandated by the Government.

Source: Government Invites Doctors Who Fled To Return To Cuba / 14ymedio
– Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/government-invites-doctors-who-fled-to-return-to-cuba-14ymedio/

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