Cuban medical internationalism
The phrase refers to individuals, governments and organisations who travel to a disaster area with the primary goal of having an "experience" rather than providing meaningful aid.
Cuban medical internationalism represents a polar opposite to this disaster tourism mentality, with a focus on large-scale, sustained aid targeting the most marginalised and under-served populations across the globe.
[1] Similarly, Venezuela's Mission Barrio Adentro program grew out of the emergency assistance provided by Cuban doctors in the wake of the December 1999 mudslides in Vargas state, which killed 20,000 people.
"[1] However, as one academic paper noted, "The idea of a nation saving lives and improving the human condition is alien to traditional statecraft and is therefore discounted as a rationale for the Cuban approach.
[1] A 2005 attempt by Honduras to expel the Cuban mission on the basis that it was threatening Honduran jobs was successfully resisted by trade unions and community organisations.
Ultimately, Cuba sent "more than 2,500 disaster response experts, surgeons, family doctors, and other health personnel", who stayed through the winter for more than 6 months.
[20] All 152 Cuban medical and educational personnel in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake were reported to be safe, with two suffering minor injuries.
[21] In 2014, Cuba sent 103 nurses and 62 doctors to help fight the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, the biggest contribution of health care staff by any single country.
Another report found that nearly 7,000–8,000 doctors since 2006 have gone into hiding or failed to return to Cuba after having gone on abroad as part of the Cuban government's "volunteering" them to provide healthcare to foreign nationals without remuneration.
While Cuban doctors are sent abroad to assist in medical missions, domestically, although wages in the health sector have increased in recent years, they are still considered low compared to the prices of basic goods in Cuba.
[29] Cuban doctors have reportedly provided a dramatic improvement to the field of medical care in Kiribati, reducing the child mortality rate in that country by 80%,[30] and winning the proverbial hearts and minds in the Pacific.
In response, the Solomon Islands began recruiting Cuban doctors in July 2007, while Papua New Guinea and Fiji considered following suit.
They had reportedly "attended 3,496 patients, and saved 53 lives", having "opened ultrasound and abortion services, as well as specialized consultations on hypertension, diabetes, and chronic diseases in children".
They had visited all the country's islands, and were training local staff in "primary health care, and how to deal with seriously ill patients, among other subjects".
The program grew out of the emergency assistance provided by Cuban doctors in the wake of the December 1999 mudslides in Vargas state,[38]: 131 which killed 20,000 people.
[42] Since 1990, Cuba has provided long-term care for 24,000 victims of the Chernobyl disaster,[43]: 277 "offering treatment for hair loss, skin disorders, cancer, leukemia, and other illnesses attributed to radioactivity", free of charge.
[1][43]: 277 Cuba has also sent notable missions to Bolivia (particularly after the 2005 election of Evo Morales) and South Africa, the latter in particular after a post-apartheid brain drain of white doctors.
[47] "From 1963 to 2004, Cuba was involved in the creation of nine medical faculties in Yemen, Guyana, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Uganda, Ghana, Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, and Haiti.
"Patients are not charged for services, and the recipient countries are expected to cover only the cost of collective housing, air fare, and limited food and supplies not exceeding $200 a month.
[49][50][51][52] In response to Hurricane Mitch in 1998, Cuba set up the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (abbreviated as ELAM, and in English the Latin American School of Medicine) outside Havana, converted from a former naval base.
Garrett concluded that, if politicians do not take great care, lifting of the restrictions would rob Cuba of its greatest triumph.
They also were asked to register people into the Venezuelan government homeland card, to secure medical services, and refuse treatment to those who did not apply for it.
Zimbabwean police arrested the doctors and took them to the O. R. Tambo International Airport in South Africa for deportation back to Cuba.
A spokesperson for the Cuban government said Cuba was not involved in the attempted deportation and has no "authority to extract people from one country and take them to another".
[56] According to a 2007 paper published in The Lancet medical journal, "growing numbers of Cuban doctors sent overseas to work are defecting to the USA", some via Colombia, where they have sought temporary asylum.
[13] From an estimated 40,000 eligible medical personnel, over 1000 had entered the United States under the program by October 2007, according to the chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart.
[58] On 12 January 2017, President Obama announced the end of the program, saying that both Cuba and the US work to "combat diseases that endanger the health and lives of our people.
