Follow The Money: The Wall Street Journal labelled Cuba’s international “Doctor Diplomacy”, where the Cuban regime keeps up to 90% of the doctor’s earnings from abroad, as Cuba’s slave trade. Cuba earned $6.3 Billion Dollars for medical services in 2018 alone, which is twice as much as Cuba earned on tourism! It appears the Cuban doctors coming to SA to “help” is once again another Socialist scam to redistribute Emergency Fund donations and Taxpayer’s money to their fellow comrades, in the guise of civil services! South Africa has many unemployed well educated and qualified doctors and medics, however they are white and therefore it is illegal to employ them, besides, many of these whites fought against the commie Cubans in Angola and South West Africa…
Since the CCPvirus pandemic spread from China, Cuba has sent more than 1,200 doctors and nurses to the frontlines of the battle against the virus to 22 countries, mostly into African and South America Socialist/Communist allies of the Cuban regime, including Venezuela, Jamaica, Nicaragua, China and most recently South Africa. As SA-News reported, 217 medical staff from Cuba are helping the ANC prop up its collapsing health system, and for decades in fact Cuba has used the sending of its doctors abroad, as a tool for diplomacy, promotion of Socialism and also plain simple crude profiteering and slavery. In fact Cuban state media tells us more than 400,000 health care workers have been sent abroad since 1963, so it is no wonder these medics are often seen as icons of Cuba’s socialist solidarity with other far left wing regimes. This commie cosy up is very evident when other countries oust their far left regimes, and elect new more centrist governments, which then send the Cuban medics back to Cuba like Bolivia did recently.
While a few are sent on humanitarian grounds, many are in fact paying the Cuban regime directly for the Cuban medics’ services. Some countries pay for the services directly to the dictatorship, while the poorer ones have the money paid for them, but to the World Health Organisation (W.H.O.) yes them, by richer donor countries, as part of their foreign aid donations. One wonders whether the ANC regime paid our hard earned taxes, or part of the Emergency Fund, to the Cuban dictatorship directly, or if some virtue signalling Western country paid it for them? Both the host country and W.H.O. pays the money into the dictatorships account, who then keeps the lions share and pays the medical staff a stipend with a promise to increase it a bit more when they return to Cuba. Is it any wonder the dictatorship in Cuba is so desperate to keep its power to preserve its very lucrative income stream?
According to The Economist, medical exports make up 46 percent of the Socialist island’s export earnings! To put that into context, Cuba earned 6.3 Billion dollars for medical services in 2018 alone! That is twice as much as it earned on tourism! While it is a major source of income for the beleaguered impoverished Cuban regime, these doctors offer an even bigger prize: diplomatic prestige and the promotion of Socialism, as we saw when the ANC ministers lined up to welcome them and sing their praises, however many critics believe Cuba’s real interests are economic, ideological and diplomatic.
The US State Department said in a statement to the Washington Post that Cuba’s deployment of medical missions overseas, while cloaked in altruism is actually a scheme to generate income that exploits Cuban medical workers. They went on to say Cuba’s medical missions program is not inherently humanitarian as the regime earned income by retaining up to 90% of the doctors salaries, while The Wall Street Journal had stronger words back in 2015 when it called Cuba’s international doctor diplomacy, it’s slave trade The dictatorship in Havana obviously denies the allegations.
So when when ANC and SACP regime tells you it is key workers doing an essential job, saving lives, the long standing politics around it really cast a shadow on it because it has always been controversial since its inception, and it’s always been a key part of the Cuban Revolution – the idea of sending brigades of doctors around the world to support like-minded Socialist nations and not necessarily to support nations that just need the help and have turned to Cuba for that. It is almost as if the communist movement are already trying to operate as a One World Government.
This medical worker industry has almost become a key national industry as Cuba is somewhat of a medical powerhouse, as it boasts the world’s highest ratio of doctors to population. Venezuelan media suggest Cuba has as many as a hundred thousand doctors, or nine physicians for every thousand citizens and it’s free health care system is considered a pillar of the Socialist revolution’s implementation.
As regards Cuba’s own readiness to fight the CCPvirus, Cuba was quick to take action with the pandemic and officially banned tourist arrivals, isolated at-risk groups and shut schools early when the country still only had around 21 confirmed cases, which was all rather simple given that it is a totalitarian dictatorship, and does not have much of an economy to speak of.
Havana is seemingly doing well in the battle with CCPvirus and have only reported 48 new cases today with in total only under 60 deaths altogether since the CCPvirus spread from China, so they are cautiously optimistic that they are seeing the top of of the curve. Cuba is going to keep the restriction measures in place where people have to wear face masks. There are cases being brought against people who break the rules and because it is a very centralized totalitarian government, like China, people will get arrested if they break the law in many areas. Cuba already has a big question on the human rights situation on the island, but when it comes to this situation, Cuba’s centralized system means that the Cuban Communist Party just makes the decision, and it gets executed throughout the country.
In a sense, while totalitarianism might be working in their favour, it is a mixed picture as there is still a lot of problems with social distancing in queues to find food, which is scarce in the best of times under a communist regime, but it is much scarcer now…
