MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil confirms contract of 4.000 Cuban doctors to work where local professionals don’t want to go

The Pan American Health Organization guarantees that it's a good practice, Foreign minister Patriota told Congress

Brazil's foreign minister on Thursday denied that the government's plan to hire 4,000 Cuban doctors to work in isolated areas has any “ideological aspect.” The decision “was taken to improve public services and has no ideological motivation of any kind,” Antonio Patriota told a congressional committee.

The aim is to offer medical services in places where Brazilian professionals do not want to go, he said.

“There are many Cuban doctors ready to do that type of work and perhaps not many Austrian doctors, for example, who want to do it,” Patriota said.

The Brazilian government on Wednesday announced that it will hire 4,000 Cuban physicians as part of a plan to improve public health approved after massive protests in June. The Health Ministry said the Cubans will be distributed among 701 cities in the northern and northeastern part of the country.

”The issue has to do with the lack of (medical) professionals in those areas of Brazil. It's something that's internationally accepted and was done within the framework of an agreement with the Pan American Health Organization, which guarantees that it's a good practice,“ the foreign minister said.

Opposition lawmakers took advantage of the public hearing to say that the hiring of the Cuban doctors was a type of payment for the Cuban government's decision to allow Brazilian companies to take part in projects like the renovation of the port of Mariel.

”No. There is no exchange of this kind and it never went through anybody's head that it was to pay for access to investments. They are initiatives that obey totally different logics,” Patriota responded.

The National Federation of Physicians complained that the Cuban doctors will work in Brazil under conditions similar to slavery and that the agreement will only serve to help finance the Cuban government.

Brazil currently has 1.8 doctors per 1,000 residents, compared with 3.7 in Uruguay and 3.2 in Argentina.