Goverment Of Cuba Quits “MÁS MÉDICOS” Program in Brazil

In a report published in the Cuba Debate Web Page the following is expressed … “The elected president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, with direct, derogatory and threatening references to the presence of our doctors, has declared and reiterated that he will modify terms and conditions of the Más Médicos Program, with disrespect to the Pan American Health Organization and to what was agreed with Cuba, by questioning the preparation of our doctors and conditioning their permanence in the program to the revalidation of the title and as the only way of contracting individual”.

According to the government of Cuba (MINSAP) .. “The announced modifications impose unacceptable conditions and breach the guarantees agreed since the beginning of the Program, which were ratified in 2016 with the renegotiation of the Cooperation Term between the Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Health of Brazil and the Cooperation Agreement between the Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba These inadmissible conditions make it impossible to maintain the presence of Cuban professionals in the Program “.

Therefore, in view of this unfortunate reality, the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba has taken the decision not to continue participating in the Más Más Program and has informed the Director of the Pan American Health Organization and the Brazilian political leaders who founded and defended this initiative.”

According to the Cuban government, “it is not acceptable to question the dignity, professionalism and altruism of Cuban collaborators who, with the support of their families, currently provide services in 67 countries.” In 55 years, 600,000 internationalist missions have been completed in 164 nations, in which more than 400,000 health workers have participated, who in many cases have fulfilled this honorable task on more than one occasion, highlighting the feats of the fight against Ebola in Africa, the blindness in Latin America and the Caribbean, cholera in Haiti and the participation of 26 brigades of the International Contingent of Physicians Specialized in Disasters and Large Epidemics “Henry Reeve” in Pakistan, Indonesia, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Venezuela, among other countries."

According to the Cuban government, “the experience of the Más Médicos Program for Brazil and the Cuban participation in it show that a South-South cooperation program can be structured under the auspices of the Pan American Health Organization to promote its goals. In our region, the United Nations Development Program and the World Health Organization qualify it as the main example of good practices in triangular cooperation and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda with its Sustainable Development Goals. ” Signed in Havana, November 14, 2018.