HAVANA, Cuba.- Cuba made a “painful, but necessary” decision to conclude its participation in the More Doctors Program in Brazil, Cuban Minister of Public Health Jose Angel Portal Miranda said in an interview with Cubadebate.

Our country did not seek the current situation, but it acts “in defense of the professional and human dignity of our collaborators and their security,” he added.
Jair Bolsonaro maintained an aggressive stance against More Doctors and Cuba’s participation since its beginning in 2013. Once elected as President, he made direct, derogatory and threatening references to the presence of Cuban physicians, reiterating that he would amend the terms and conditions of the program.

Faced with this scenario, the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) decided to end its participation in the More Doctors Program, in which more than 20 thousands Cuban health professionals gave attention to millions of Brazilians in poor and remote areas.

—What elements were taken into account in order to conclude the Cuban participation in More Doctors? What would you respond to those who consider there may have been some precipitation?

“Nothing that has been done until now is precipitated. We fully understand that the decision has an impact on the Brazilian people. Unlike others, we have always considered health care as a matter of top priority, regardless of any political considerations.

“We have made a painful but necessary decision in defense of the professional and human dignity of our collaborators and their security. For months we have followed up on the threatening and provocative pronouncements of the President-elect, which he ratified the day after his election was confirmed.”

— At what point a limit situation was reached in Brazil?

“We took long enough to confirm that the President-elect was willing to affect the health care of about 30 million Brazilians, all to carry out a political replay that is impossible to understand how it would benefit his country.

“It is not a question of Cuba being able to have political or ideological differences with a certain government. The practice of the last few decades contains countless examples of how our country has put the health of a people above politics. In 2009, during the coup d’état in Honduras against President Manuel Zelaya, about 400 Cuban doctors remained in that country in very difficult conditions, assuming personal risks and without any kind of economic guarantee. The elements of judgement prevailing then were the social impact its withdrawal would have for the Honduran people and that the coup government never assumed an aggressive stance or questioning of the Cuban collaboration. Cuba does not make politics with the health of any people.

“But what is not allowed in any case, what is painful in Brazil, is that the recognized prestige of the Cuban School of Health is questioned. Nor can malicious and biased offerings be tolerated that seek the collaborators to abandon their mission. Much less we will admit the offenses to their moral integrity, nor the slightest risk to their lives.

“It is the first time in 55 years of collaboration, time during which more 600 thousand Cubans have served in more than 160 countries, which we see a situation like this. We’re not looking for it.”

—Bolsonaro has even described Cuban doctors as “slaves”…

“Our doctors are not formed in the school of general free-for-all, as it happens in neoliberalism. After the coup d’état, social expenditures were frozen for 20 years in Brazil, but Cuba allocates more than 25% of the state’s budget to health and social security costs. Our social project is based on solidarity and justice, hence the support we receive from the world.

“The money arriving in Cuba as part of the medical cooperation with Brazil contributes to finance the social services of 11 million of Cubans, including the relatives of doctors abroad. Money does not go to anyone’s personal account or serve individual interests. While some use public money to save banks, Cuba saves lives.

“It is at least suspicious that the President-elect worries so much about the welfare of Cuban doctors and their families, but he does not issue any comment on the tens of thousands of Brazilian professionals who lack a recognized title to exercise Medicine. Out of every 100 professionals who are tested, the Brazilian medical College only approves eight to regulate what they consider a health market. Less concern the President-elect still shows about the more than 30 million Brazilians who will be left without medical attention in 2019. Do these Brazilians have no human rights?

“The only thing that Cuban doctors are slaves is love of the human being and solidarity with the one who needs it the most. And that can be attested to by anyone in the world who has been cared for by them.”

—What concrete measures are taken to protect physicians?

“As it is tradition in our Revolution, no one will be abandoned or lack attention and company.

“The Cuban Government has created an inter-sectorial working group that analyses every step and every measure every day. In coordination with our State Mission in Brazil, including our Medical Brigade, we have provided for a quick and orderly return of medical personnel, with all the guarantees for collaborators and their safety.

“A part of our physicians are permanent residents in Brazil, with Brazilian families constituted. Nor will we leave them to their fate and they can always count on the support and guarantees of Cuba.”

—What options will the more than eight thousand Cuban health professionals returning from Brazil have?

“First of all, they have the right to rejoin their jobs in Cuba, in similar conditions to those before leaving. Those who prefer will also have the possibility of providing their solidarity services in other countries requiring it.

“Cuba constantly receives demands for health services from various countries, not only in Latin America and the Caribbean. Training a doctor can take decades and not all nations are in a position to achieve it, so the Cuban model has served to bring health care to millions of people in the world, in a format of South-South cooperation more than proven in practice and that constitute the main contribution of Cuba to universal access to health.

“And I’m not talking about any health care, but one based on humanism and that is willing to go to the most intricate places, where even local professionals avoid going. This is the Cuban School of Medicine, which has a recognized international prestige, based on the quality of its professors, high scientific level, permanent exchange with the most advanced practices at international level and a constant Improvement.

“And if there were any doubt of its quality, there are the health indicators of our country, which compete with those of nations of the First World, to clear any questions.

“These same values are shared with the tens of thousands of foreign health professionals who have formed in Cuba. Hence the recognition we have gained from international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).”

—What is the balance of these five years of More Doctors?

“The peoples of Cuba and Brazil will always be proud of the feat starred by nearly 20000 health workers who were part of the More Doctors Program, initiated by the Government of the Workers’ Party to improve health coverage in the poorest areas of the country.

“Our professionals made more than 100 million of consultations and changed the history of Brazil. The inhabitants of about 700 municipalities saw a doctor for the first time with the arrival of the Cubans. They changed the health indicators of that country and demonstrated it is possible to promote South-South international cooperation with the support and guidance of the Pan American Health Organization.”

—How do you think doctors will be received in Cuba?

“We must receive them as heroes, with gratitude and admiration, with the same feelings that the Brazilian people see them off today.

“This Monday, for example, it was the birthday of one of our collaborators in Brazil, Yarima Lastres Carreras. From her comments on social networks, we knew she celebrated with several of the more than 5,000 patients she takes care in the state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil. She has told us she will be at her job until the last minute, because she has a commitment to the poorest in a country marked by inequality.

“Who will look them in the eye and listen to them really touching them? Who will heal the body and also the soul… as we only know how to do? Those are Yarima’s concerns and they are also ours.

“But she, like the rest of her companions, will come back with her forehead high, because they gave their best, because they are so much More than Doctors.”