MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Cuban doctors to Brazil hinterland in exchange for infrastructure works
Brazil said Monday it was negotiating with Havana the possibility of hiring and bringing in around 6,000 Cuban doctors to work in areas where they are needed in the fifth largest country of the world and with a population of 200 million. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesAn excellent policy. Following in the footsteps of Chavez =)
May 07th, 2013 - 11:42 am - Link - Report abuse 0About 50,000 Cuban doctors are working in Venezuela. They work in some of the worst deprived areas and give much needed health care to the considerable numbers of poor and destitute in Venezuela. And it gives Cuba a hold over Venezuela when discussing free oil.
May 07th, 2013 - 01:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0On the other hand, if Venezuela stopped giving away the oil they could pay to train their own doctors and pull some of those people out of poverty Just an idea.
Cuba has a crumbling infrastructure and also a crumbling ideology.
May 07th, 2013 - 03:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0With few resources, a small land area and a large population, they have to be innovative.
Joint projects between Cuba and outside investors, Canada and China, brought them up from producing 15% of their own energy supplies when the Soviets left, to 50% today. The rest I assume is from Venezuela, and that may be in jeopardy now.
Italy and Spain have been instrumental with money and expertise, to create a huge tourist industry catering to Canadians and Europeans.
With the collapse of Communism, however, the well-educated, and better- compensated, Professional Class of Engineers, Doctors, etc., now earn far less than the Bartender at the Iberostar Veradero.
Doctors and Medical expertise are an export Cuba has, with real value, both as a humanitarian value, and a revenue/trade generating commodity.
Let's hope that today, they are no longer exporting their ideology with it.
The time I have spent with the Cuban people, I have greatly enjoyed.
I hope the US can normalise relations with Cuba, perhaps that will have to wait until the Castros are gone.
I once had an opportunity to speak with Cuban university lecturer for a few hours.
He came across as a proud, but not rabid, patriot. He was certainly not a Nationalist.
Some of the older people are very pro-Castro, pro-government, but are also pleased with the outside investment coming in.
Many of the younger people just want 'real' jobs outside of Cuba. They want to join the rest of the world, cellphones abound now, whereas they were almost unheard of in 2005.
Computers are very restricted, private email accounts illegal, but many many 'small businessmen' have one, and give them out freely to tourists.
Good luck to the Cuban people.
This is wonderful news for the Brazilians who will now receive medical care, many probably for the first time in their lives, and at no out-of-pocket cost to them.
May 07th, 2013 - 03:12 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It's wonderful news for the Cuban doctors who will get to see what life is like in the capitalist world and at the same time will receive a nice “estimulo” which they can send to their families at home. And when they return home from stints abroad they can bring things with them and only have to pay import duty in Cuban national money.
It couldn't be a more timely rebuke to the Obama regime who has just days ago re-branded Cuba “a state sponsor of terrorism”. Evidently the government of Brazil knows that that branding is nothing but political bullshit, designed by Washington to keep on justifying the US blockade of the island.
Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
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WALTER LIPPMANN
Los Angeles, California
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
“Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo”
=========================================
I can remember when th main export of Cuba was cigars. Where the hell are they getting all theses doctors from?
May 07th, 2013 - 06:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#5 From a great health service, based on the same principles that make our own NHS great =)
May 07th, 2013 - 09:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Well, let's bring a degree of reality to this 'party'.
May 07th, 2013 - 09:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Just remind me of who treated Chavez? The TOP Cuban doctors in Cuba itself, no less.
And who miss-diagnosed what Chubby was suffering from? Those same 'Top Doctors'
And who dosed him with a chemo-therapy which 'hardened' his cancer to the real chemo these same 'Top Doctors' SHOULD have used? Yes you have got the answer!
And these same 'Top Doctors' are the people training all the other doctors do we think? I would think so otherwise the Trainers may not be as good as the 'Top Doctors'.
I understand that to some poor sod in the Brasilian hinterland who has never seen a doctor these people will be a real asset.
I would rather trust the local Shaman if the diagnosis involved cancerous growths however.
ChrisR
May 07th, 2013 - 09:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Quite right.
It is all relative, and while the Doctors will be a great benefit to many, it is in the interest of trade.
Hopefully, it is not being used as ideological foothold in foreign countries.
Chris R, who seems to know everything which the Cuban doctors did that war wrong, presumably examined President Chavez himself, so he knows better than the physicians to actually treated Chavez?
May 07th, 2013 - 10:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Sounds like the squishy sound of sour gripes.
Walter Lippmann.
Brazil , be careful ! Cuba will send indoctrinated , in communism obviously , doctors who will “ spread ” the good word !
May 07th, 2013 - 10:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#7 But I thought he didn't have a chance of recovery; at least that's what you were saying when he was still alive!
May 08th, 2013 - 11:05 am - Link - Report abuse 0@11bk
May 08th, 2013 - 12:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“#7 But I thought he didn't have a chance of recovery; at least that's what you were saying when he was still alive!”
Exactly, BK.
Chavez did not recover. He was supposedly writing letters, naming successors etc. from his hospital bed, for months, but that was all behind closed doors.
Despite the clamouring for proof that he was alive, none was forthcoming.
He was picture with his daughters, but no visitor who could have quickly confirmed be was alive and ended the protests, was admitted.
It was a hoax, and you know it.
Cuba's population is 11 million.
May 08th, 2013 - 03:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Brazil's population is nearly 200 million.
And Cuba has some important problems of its own.
Therefore, these Cuban doctors must be very persuasive if these few Cuban doctors are going to win over the 200 million Brazilians to communism!
Thanks for pointing that out, Trojan.
Walter Lippmann.
9 walterlx
May 08th, 2013 - 04:08 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“Chris R, who seems to know everything which the Cuban doctors did that war(?) wrong, presumably examined President Chavez himself, so he knows better than the physicians to actually treated Chavez?
Sounds like the squishy sound of sour gripes. Walter Lippmann.”
Sounds to me, that despite being a sympathiser you know very little about the medical facilities in Cuba. Why do you not research things properly before you make yourself look a complete twat?
The actual problem that Chubby had was well know as to its nature and location, and the Russian doctors who train the Cuban ones KNOW exactly what their protégés did wrong.
I found it a complete hoot. Had Chavez not blown the US out of the frame he may well still be ‘with us’ now and not just a little bird on some pratts hat.
Nice to know the USA have another fruit cake in their midst. I bet you hear funny ‘clicks’ on your ‘phone line and are followed around by all sorts of people? Do tell.
11 British_Kirchnerist
He died, but he could have lasted much longer if the growth had been treated with the correct chemo ‘cocktail’ and not the one for bowel cancer which made it resistant it to the correct chemistry.
13walter
May 08th, 2013 - 05:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0If you will look at my original post @3, you will see that I am of much the same mind as you about Cuba exporting their doctors - a resourceful solution to an economic problem with bonus that it benefits humanity.
I do agree with Chris too, that they may not have provided the very best treatment for Chavez' cancer, but I believe it is far better thst the rural people of Brazil get these Cuban doctors, than no doctors at all, or Shamen.
You will see that I have said exporting doctors is to be applauded as long as they are not used to export their ideology too.
I don't believe they are doing so, either.
However, it is believed that this program was used politically in the past, in Africa for example.
Again, I don't think they are doing that today.
Perhaps you have used to reacting in a knee-jerk fashion for the past 54 years everytime the name Cuba came up, but that era is over.
In fact, I'll bet the biggest struggle you face is staying relevant.
The Cubans have done well at keeping Fidel alive.
May 08th, 2013 - 06:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0They obviously had every interest in keeping Chavez alive as long as possible.
Since neither of us examined Chavez, it's hard to assess the level of care he received, but if Brazil thinks, after Chavez died, that they want six thousand more Cuban doctors to care for their people, it strongly suggests they have confidence in Cuban doctors.
If Cuba were not relevant, Washington would not be working as hard as it is to attack Cuba politically, to sabotage its economy, and to meddle in its internal politics.
Have a nice day.
Walter Lippmann
#12 No, Chavez died on the 5th of March, 2013. Make the most of that if you like - 60 years to the day from Stalin, I'm sure that could form the basis for a Rumsfeldian “comparison”...
May 08th, 2013 - 07:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#16 Amen to all of that!
Walter
May 08th, 2013 - 08:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“If Cuba were not relevant, Washington would not be working as hard as it is to attack Cuba politically, to sabotage its economy, and to meddle in its internal politics.”
Perhaps in Walter Lippmann's day.
The US has recently begun relaxing regarding their relations with Cubans.
The last time I stayed at the Hotel Nacional, there were lots of Revolutionary Guard, lots of Government Mercedes, lots of Government officials, and yes, Americans.
How relevant are you, to US - Cuba relations?
My personal relevance is modest. There are still quite a few people from the United States who stay at the Hotel Nacional. I can't afford to stay at a five-star hotel, either there in Cuba or elsewhere.
May 08th, 2013 - 09:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Well, I've occasionally had a drink there. A few months ago.
There's been no relaxation of US-Cuba relations. If there had been, the Cuban Five and Alan Gross would long since have returned home. If there had been, US citizens would be free to travel to Cuba if they wanted to, and for whatever reasons without needing a permission slip from the federal government in Washington.
Anyway, it's good for Cuba and good for Brazil that the two countries are working together amicably. It would be better for both countries if the United States and Cuba and relations a constructive as that between Cuba and Brazil.
Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
Walter
May 08th, 2013 - 11:58 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Not much respect for the Cuban 5.
Whatever their motives, they were spys sponsored by the Cuban government and their deliberate actions resulted in the deaths of ex-Cubans flying an unarmed plane over Cuban waters, dropping paper LEAFLETS, and attempting to aid fleeing Cubans trying to escape Cuba.
Contrary to your post, one of them has been released and returned to Cuba.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five
Sorry to use a Wiki source, but it is a good example of how easy it is to access this information.
Please note that this took place nearly 20 years ago, hardly recent.
As to Alan Gross;
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five
His 'crime' of providing Smartphones to Cuban Jews, seems out of proportion to his sentence, especially compared to the acts of the Cuban 5 who spied and caused deaths.
I will ask you personally, do you really believe that Obama's US Gov., today, is going to effort to “meddle” with the affairs of Cuba??
“ Under Barack Obama, the US government has restarted the ”people-to-people“ program, intended to bring US citizens in closer contact with Cuban citizens through programs involving cultural exchange. You can sign up with a program that offers extensive programming such as orphanage visits, musical concerts, and visits to museums without having to have special status as a working journalist or scholar.A New York Times article has additional information [2].
It is even possible for an individual with a credible background in, say, freelance journalism or academics, to craft a ”mission“ for their visit which successfully gets them a permit. Further details and forms are available from the U.S. Dept. of State [3].”
I respect you as an advocate for Cubans, Walter, however, 'The” Walter Lippmann would acknowledge that the barriers are coming down and the Cold War is over.
Once the Castro brothers are gone, I imagine things will change quickly.
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