One of the consequences of López Obrador’s trip to Cuba are two facts that I am sure many of us are concerned about. On the one hand, it is announced that our government will hire 500 Cuban doctors to work in the health system and, on the other, that Mexico bought Cuban vaccines to apply to Mexican children. What a couple of news.
We must remember that the United Nations has shown (since these medical caravans began) its concern for the working and personal conditions of the “professionals” sent by the Caribbean island on these international missions. Let’s start by specifying that, according to these reports, not all cases are trained personnel who comply with the regulations of Mexico (or other countries) to be able to practice medicine. This basic problem was never solved, not even when these missions came in times of the first wave of Covid in 2020. The UN documented that these Cuban workers receive only between 10 and 25% of the supposed wages they are paid since the Most of this money remains in the hands of the government (or rather…dictatorship) of Díaz-Canel.
It should also be mentioned that itinerant Cuban doctors feel pressured to participate in these tours since they fear reprisals against them or their families by the authorities of their country. Doctors who manage to escape this internationalization program cannot return to Cuba for a period of 8 years and their relatives are exposed to sanctions and worse due to the defection of their relative. Thus the situation of respect for human rights in Cuba, that country that our president admires and supports so much.
The European Parliament has also described the missions of Cuban doctors abroad as human trafficking and modern slavery. This European institution condemned the systematic violations of human rights committed by the Cuban State, specifically against its health personnel.
From the point of view of Mexican medical organizations, they have also protested and raised their voices for the thousands of medical professionals who are currently underemployed or unemployed or who do not accept working in very precarious conditions in distant towns where they are not provides the essential material to be able to exercise their profession. These groups, through a statement released on social networks, openly expressed their discontent and the lack of knowledge on the part of the federal government of the academic capacity of our universities and the shortcomings that doctors face, after the disappearance of Seguro Popular, the noisy failure of INSABI and the insufficiency of the IMSS Welfare proposal. In these we are.
In relation to Cuban vaccines, the medical community is surprised by the alleged use of these biologicals, which have not even gone through phase three of the investigation that must be scientifically certified before human use. In addition to the fact that they are not recognized by the WHO and that they could put the health of Mexican children at risk.
Why put our children or grandchildren at risk for a bad decision that is due only to an ideological commitment rather than to the responsibility of caring for our families? Ignorance and the desire for power are bad and dangerous, I would almost dare to say that they represent an explosive mixture for the well-being of Mexicans. Watch out!
psychologist
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Psychologist, driver, writer, commentator for Grupo Formula.