Minrex statement: United States intensifies its campaign against Cuba's international medical cooperation

 

Below, Cubadebate reproduces the statement of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the campaign of the current United States Administration against the island's medical cooperation in various nations of the world, which has come to exert pressure on governments and now does so with threats to the Pan American Health Organization.

The people of Cuba and the international community are aware of the dishonest campaign that the United States Government has unleashed since 2019 to discredit Cuba's international medical cooperation, put pressure on the governments that receive it, and deprive the peoples of these health services.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounces that, as part of this offensive, the US government has unleashed pressure and blackmail against the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Under threat of not disbursing the financial contribution to be made by the United States as the main contributor to the organization's budget, the PAHO Secretariat was forced to accept what they call “an external review of PAHO's role in the More Doctors Program. in Brazil ”, in which thousands of Cuban professionals had the opportunity to participate at the express request of the Popular Government of the Workers' Party, and which has been the object of the grossest smear campaign by the United States and the current Government Brazilian.

The alleged concerns of the United States about Cuba's cooperation, in this case about the More Doctors program, are neither legitimate nor pertinent to be discussed at PAHO. The More Doctors Program, which has received previous audits with positive results, was established under a tripartite agreement between the Cuban government, the then Brazilian government, and PAHO.

The Program made it possible for Cuban doctors in Brazil to attend 113,359,000 patients from August 2013 to November 2018, in more than 3,600 municipalities, providing permanent health coverage to 60 million Brazilians. Thanks to the program, it was possible to expand the coverage of basic and health care for Brazilians; Access to and the offer of health actions was expanded and the population's health indicators were improved, reducing hospitalizations due to the preventive work of doctors.

The level of satisfaction and approval of patients, doctors and program managers was high. According to a study by the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), 95% of the patients were satisfied or very satisfied with the program.

If Cuba had not been forced to withdraw its doctors from Brazil, they could have contributed to the control and confrontation of the COVID-19 pandemic in that country, the second most affected worldwide.

As reported in a statement from the Ministry of Public Health of November 14, 2018, Cuba made the decision not to continue participating in the More Doctors Program due to the servility of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who with a contemptuous and threatening attitude towards our collaborators and In frank disrespect for PAHO and its agreement with Cuba, it imposed modifications to the terms of the program, which led to a breach of the initially agreed guarantees and unacceptable conditions for the permanence of our professionals.

It is disgusting that the United States government tries to manipulate international and regional organizations at will. It is known that there is no document adopted by the governing bodies of PAHO that grants a mandate or endorses from the legal point of view the performance of this review or the drafting of its so-called “terms of reference”.

Said drafting was in charge of a group made up of the United States, Brazil, the PAHO Secretariat itself, and Canada, the latter acting as a mediator between the parties. To make matters worse, this entire review process is carried out under the regular budget of PAHO.

Without any mandate, a US law firm was hired, which in 180 days must issue an adjusted evaluation and, therefore, predetermined in accordance with the “terms of reference” that the select group led by the United States has already defined.

No one with a basic sense of honesty, with a knowledge of the purposes and conduct of the United States Government, or with a modicum of common sense can doubt that they are facing a frontal attack against multilateralism, of a crude manipulation with political ends of PAHO and an extension of the aggression against Cuba.

After the denouncement of this maneuver by the Minister of Public Health José Angel Portal Miranda at the 58th Directing Council of PAHO, on September 28, it was demonstrated in the interventions of representatives of the State Department that the United States Government is behind the pressure against the organization, against Cuba's cooperation programs with member states of the region, and the so-called “external review” of the More Doctors Program for Brazil.

The United States went further by opposing the election of Cuba as a member of the PAHO Executive Committee, an action that failed due to the unanimous support that Cuba's candidacy received. During the Council sessions, several countries recognized and thanked the solidarity and cooperation of Cuban health personnel in the confrontation with COVID-19.

The Ministry of Foreign Relations denounces that a spurious and mendacious evaluation is being prepared promoted by and for the aggressive purposes of the United States in its effort to discredit Cuba's international cooperation.

It is regrettable that through this new maneuver, the United States Government tries to damage Cuba's relations with PAHO, which have historically rested on cooperation, respect, the common identification of humanistic goals and values, and the effort to guarantee health services. quality to the population. On these premises, a relationship of which Cuba has been proud has been built.

The Ministry ratifies Cuba's firm commitment to the development and sustainability of its health system for the benefit of the Cuban people and cooperation with the peoples of the region and other parts of the world.

It has the capacity to do it, built with its own efforts. It is a reality that no one can change.

Access to healthcare is a human right, and the United States commits a crime when it sets out to deprive millions of people of that inalienable right.

As expressed in the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of December 5, 2019, it is immoral and unacceptable to question the dignity, professionalism and altruism of the more than 400,000 Cuban health collaborators who, in 56 years, they have served missions in 164 nations.

The intensified economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba, whose effects are particularly devastating in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, has not been able and will not be able to prevent our country from sharing its scarce resources with other peoples of the world. they need it.

In addition to facing the pandemic in Cuba, and guided by the solidarity and humanist vocation of our people, the country has reinforced its international medical cooperation with the dispatch of more than 3,800 collaborators organized in 52 medical brigades to 39 countries and territories affected by the disease, who joined those already serving in 59 states before the pandemic.

As the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, expressed in his reflection of October 2, 2014, entitled “The hour of duty”, “the medical personnel who march to any point to save lives, even at the risk of losing his is the greatest example of solidarity that human beings can offer ”.

Havana, September 30, 2020