More Doctors program evoked in Brazil with the collaboration of Cuba

Brasilia, Aug 30 (Prensa Latina) The More Doctors program, launched on July 8, 2013, is still necessary in Brazil for its important role in the promotion of health, Cuban consul Pedro Monzon said.

In an extensive article published in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, the diplomat assures that the purpose of the initiative was to recruit doctors in the country and in the world to work in poor and remote areas of Brazil.

He specifies that Cuban participation, until 2018, was very effective and was organized on the basis of a technical cooperation project between the Pan American Health Organization and the Ministries of Health of Cuba and Brazil.

At the time the program was suspended, more than 8,000 Cuban professionals were collaborating in Brazil, where they attended nearly 113,359,000 patients in more than 3,600 municipalities, of which 700 had medical services for the first time in their history, he recalls.

He emphasizes that all health indicators improved ostensibly in the places where his compatriots worked and ‘death rates were reduced and unnecessary suffering due to curable diseases was avoided’.

For the diplomat, the role of Cuban doctors was recognized by the population, which suffered greatly with their departure.

On November 14, 2018, the island authorities determined not to continue in the program in the face of questioning and derogatory statements by the then president-elect Jair Bolsonaro against the Cuban professionals