CUBAN DOCTORS ARE UNDER ATTACK!
END US AGGRESSION AGAINST CUBA!
Statement of Manitoba-Cuba Solidarity Committee, March 30, 2025
Cuba’s medical internationalism is renowned throughout the world, with tens of thousands of Cuban doctors providing vital healthcare services to countries around the globe. The US wants to destroy these medical assistance programs. On February 25, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced restrictions on visas for anyone “complicit” in Cuba’s revolutionary medical assistance programs. The restrictions impact Cuban officials and members of third-country governments. Outrageously, Washington has accused the Cuban government of “human trafficking” by sending these medical professionals abroad. This is a transparent attempt by the US government to demonize, isolate, and overthrow the Cuban government, a target of Washington’s for more than sixty years.
Cuban doctors abroad work mostly in underdeveloped nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, but not exclusively. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cuban government provided medical professionals to Italy, hard-hit by the pandemic. In 2020, Manitoba First Nations requested that Ottawa allow Cuban doctors onto reserves to protect Indigenous peoples from COVID-19 (the Trudeau government refused).
Since 2004, Cuban doctors working abroad have been one of the island country’s main sources of government revenue. Medical internationalism has become increasingly important to Cuban foreign policy in the twenty-first century, but it is not a new venture. Cuba’s dedication to global health originates from a deep sense of international solidarity and humanitarianism that have been present since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
Cuban doctors are involved in emergency response brigades, building public health systems abroad, treating foreign patients in Cuba, and providing medical training for non-Cubans. Some of Cuban doctors’ greatest accomplishments include:
- Treating 26,000 people affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986;
- Performing 36 million consultations in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and saving 429,000 lives;
- Fighting Ebola in West Africa in 2014;
- Treating 1.26 million COVID-19 patients in over forty countries;
- Training tens of thousands of foreign medical students at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). These foreign students are given free education and medical training, and their ranks include US students as well.
It is precisely because Cuban doctors are globally renowned, improve the health of millions, and earn the small Caribbean country much-needed income that the Trump administration is trying to destroy Cuba’s medical internationalism.
Caribbean leaders were quick to resist Washington’s absurd campaign against Cuban doctors. Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley said,
“We could not get through the pandemic without the Cuban nurses and the Cuban doctors…if the cost of it is the loss of my visa to the US, then so be it.”
Terrance Drew, Prime Minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis, said
“Cuba has been an indispensable partner to the Caribbean.”
The Prime Minister of Grenada was even more direct:
“I do not believe that any public health system in the Caribbean can survive without the support of the medical personnel from Cuba.”
The world benefits from the solidarity of Cuban doctors. Show solidarity with them and say, “Enough!” Tell the Canadian government to stand up to Washington and end US aggression against Cuba!
Find Manitoba-Cuba Solidarity Committee on Facebook and Instagram. Write to manitobacubasolidarity@gmail.com or phone 204 894-9381.