Whatever our view is about the political situation in Cuba, whether we support or are opposed to the Government of Cuba, there are two things we can have consensus on: The first is that the US embargo against Cuba is inhumane, unconscionable, and is an injustice that should be ended with immediate effect; just as the UN has called for in annual resolutions for more than the past two decades. The second is that the Cuban health diplomacy push has been, for more than 50 years now, one of the global success stories.
Ruminations therefore completely rejects US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s description of the Cuban Medical Brigade as a human trafficking enterprise. There can be no diminishing of the contributions Cuba has made to global health. It is why the recent attack against Cuba, and the US describing the Cuban health diplomacy programme as human trafficking, is unfortunate.
We can all, as global citizens, admire the Cuban health diplomacy programme, even if we reject Cuba’s politics.
In the newspapers this week, there was a story of a young woman from the East Coast returning home from Cuba qualified as a doctor. This is the story of thousands of Guyanese children who obtained scholarships to Cuba to study medicine. Children of farmers, canecutters, fishermen; from rural communities, the hinterland as well as urban communities; no matter what the economic circumstances their family might have been in – poor or wealthy did not matter – they became doctors because Cuba provided thousands of scholarships for Guyanese children. And many countries across the world could say the same.
It has been more than 52 years since Cuba and Guyana formally partnered through diplomatic relations. Since 1978, Cuban doctors and other categories of health workers have been a staple in the health sector of Guyana – a concrete benefit from the formal diplomatic ties between our countries. I was in Parliament when our then Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Honorable Carolyn Rodrigues, on January 3, 2013, moved a motion to recognize the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The friendship and mutual respect between our two countries continue to be strong.
While formal diplomatic relationship between our countries started in December 1972, Guyana has had friendly relations with Cuba since 1961, under the then Premier Dr. Cheddi Jagan. Ever since, scholarships have been provided for Guyanese children; but back in 2006, President Jagdeo and President Fidel Castro struck a deal to send more than 1,000 Guyanese children to study medicine in Cuba.
Cuban doctors and other health care providers have been serving Guyana since 1 1978. In the lean years, when – in the 1980s and the early 1990s – Guyana’s health sector was broken, it was the Cuban Medical Brigade that kept the health sector floating above water. Lest we forget also, it was the Cuban Medical Brigade that assisted in starting the Medical Programme at UG, from which more than 1,000 Guyanese children have graduated as doctors and are serving Guyana today.
Medical diplomacy, or health diplomacy, is a cornerstone national goal for Cuba, and the country has long championed its commitment to health as a “moral incentive”. Not only has the small-island nation based much of its own health care system on the concept of universal coverage, but it has consistently sent its own doctors abroad to other sites during times of need. Notable examples include its response in Chile after an earthquake in 1960; its response in the then-Soviet Union following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986; Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami; Haiti after the 2010 earthquake; West African countries to fight Ebola in 2014; Caricom countries after various hurricane disasters; and, more recently, Africa and LAC during COVID-19.
One great public health social justice programme was “Operation Miracle”, or “Operations Milagro”. It was launched in 2004 by Cuban President Fidel Castro with support from Hugo Chavez. In Latin America, at the time, some 3 million people were blind, and between 7 and 10 million suffered from poor vision. The vast majority of these cases were avoidable and amenable to cure. That said, for the 37 million people worldwide who suffered from blindness at the time, Operation Milagro was a blessing. Operation Miracle was a massive international Cuban campaign that, in the end, contributed to the restoration of vision to almost 6 million people in the developing LAC and other developing countries. The programme reached people in 35 countries.
In Guyana, diagnostic centres were established in Suddie, Leonora, Mahaicony and Port Mourant. The Port Mourant Ophthalmology Centre has treated thousands of patients across Guyana, Suriname and other Caricom countries.
The US contention is that doctors have been forced to earn money for Cuba. The truth is that, for almost 45 years, the Cuban Government earned no money from Guyana. There were many countries like Guyana where the doctors were only given accommodation and a stipend. They still were paid in Cuba by the Cuban Government. In some better-off countries, Cuba was remunerated at an agreed cost. The Cuban doctors were still paid by the Cuban Government. Cuba was marketing a service at an affordable cost.
Instead of knocking the Cuban model for improved global health, countries should come together with funds and human resources so that we could address the inequity in health that is a global injustice. Healthcare workers can be mobilized for training and for deployment to help in crisis situation and in those countries where healthcare is underdeveloped. Cuba has shown that the model is workable. If we could just put our political ideologies and interest aside for a moment, a good global model is staring at us. For the sake of humanity, we should not turn our backs on something that has brought relief to millions around the world.