Ralph Gonsalves defends Cuba’s medical program in his country

The Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, defended Cuba's medical brigade program in the face of threats from the Government of the United States, iWitness New highlighted on Friday.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington was announcing the expansion of an existing policy of restrictions on officials of foreign governments whose countries employ Cuban doctors and nurses.

“Maybe some people in Florida who are putting pressure do not fully understand what is happening, and when they receive the information, they will see that they are wrong,” Gonsalves stressed.

He explained that the CARICOM foreign ministers met to discuss the issue “and decided to gather all the relevant information, and they are going to discuss the issue at the regional level, and they hope to have a meeting at some point in the not-too-distant future at an appropriate level with the US Government.”

While St. Vincent and the Grenadines does not have a significant number of Cuban medical personnel compared to Jamaica and Guyana, his country pays Cuban professionals the same rate as its own professionals.

“It is said that the Cuban professionals who are here under the agreement with the Cuban Government, they had to pay, I don’t know if it is 10 percent or 15 percent, whatever, of their salary to the Cuban Government.

“But that does not mean that they are exploited. They have free education. And if they go abroad, earning money from that education, it is not unreasonable for them to put something in the box for more people to be educated,” he said.

In defending the presence of Cuban health personnel here, he referred to the Hemodialysis Unit at the modern Medical and Diagnostic Complex, which is supervised by professionals from Cuba.

“There are 60 people there on hemodialysis, 60 ordinary San Vicenteans. They are receiving free hemodialysis, but the point I am going to get to is that if the Cubans are not there, we may not be able to manage the service. Should I allow 60 people to die?” he remarked.

“I would rather lose my visa than have 60 poor, working-class people die,” the prime minister remarked.

On Friday, the Association of Friendship with Cuba in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines denounced the intention of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “demonize the assistance of Cuban medical personnel to underdeveloped nations” and described it as a “Cold War practice.”

“Cuba, the largest and most developed of the Antillean chain, is a sister nation of the Caribbean that has long demonstrated its willingness to share its human resources capital not only with the rest of the region, but with Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia,” it stressed.