By Webster Malido. The Post of Zambia (Lusaka). Africa News Online. July 6, 2000
Lusaka - Cuban ambassador to Zambia Martin Mora Diaz has denied suggestions by recent press reports that Cuban doctors enjoy better conditions than their Zambian counterparts.
In a press statement, the Cuban ambassador said contrary to reports that Cuban doctors were more favoured in terms of conditions than Zambian doctors, the doctors were actually working under difficult conditions as they were not even entitled to certain international conditions.
Ambassador Diaz said the Cuban doctors were in fact at par with Zambian doctors in terms of conditions.
"Many of these doctors are at epidemiological risk as well as their Zambian brothers and sisters. All of them live under the same modest conditions of other local and expatriate doctors if not more modest," he said.
He said whereas the Cubans could have been entitled to financial compensation because of working under difficult and harzadous conditions, the doctors had forgone such privileges because they understood the economic problems Zambia was going through.
"Such difficult and harzadous conditions are financially compensated in standard agreements from international health institutions, but Cuba and its doctors have never requested such privileges," ambassador Diaz said.
Ambassador Diaz said apart from the 27 doctors working at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), all of the over 140 Cuban doctors were working in some of the remotest areas of the country, a situation which he said was not the case with other expatriate doctors.
"Over 140 doctors are deployed in some of the aforementioned 27 stations. There is no other group of expatriate doctors nor Zambian agreement with another country so encompassing, of such wide coverage and attending to as many Zambian patients as the Cuban medical contingent do," he
said.
The ambassador has paid tribute to the Cuban doctors for accepting to work in any part of the country regardless of distance and prevalence of diseases.
Ambassador Diaz has meanwhile called upon Zambians to understand the difficulties that his country was going through especially with the long standing economic blockade.
"Cuba, its people and government fully understand the ongoing difficulties that the Zambian people are facing, we expect Zambia also to understand Cubas limitation and difficulties Cuba being a poor and blockaded country which as a developing country faces many challenges," he said.
Ambassador Diaz also confirmed that his government was currently engaged in consultations with the Zambian government on the issue of Cuban doctors conditions of service.
Ambassador Diaz said the purpose of the consultations was to arrive at conditions of service that would be mutually acceptable to both countries.
He said Cuba was willing to accept certain conditions in order to continue assisting the Zambian people.
"What is possible to assure the Zambian people, and has already been communicated to the Zambian government, is to ratify the political will of the Cuban government in order to assist the friendly Zambian people and government to find a solution equally satisfactory for the two of us, also
feasible and realistic within the framework of our shared limitations and difficulties," he said.
"That is to say, to ratify the principle of conceding realities and interest to reach a viable understanding."
The Cuban ambassador has meanwhile assured Zambia of his country's continued support in the area of health.
His comments come in the wake of local doctors who have questioned why government has offered the Cubans an average of K3 million per month while also paying for their accommodation in expensive hotels while the striking medics were only offered K700,000 under the revised conditions.
Recently, health minister David Mpamba was quoted by the local press as saying that the government would review contracts with their bilateral partners to ensure parity in terms of doctors conditions of service.
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