Lázaro Echemendía, Cuba Press
SANTA CLARA, June, 2000 - "Cuba is able to send medical help abroad not because we are a rich country, but because we have priceless human capital… Our neighbors to the north could not possibly recruit 2,000 volunteers to send on missions as difficult as these. Not even by paying
them 100,000 dollars could they accomplish that." - Fidel Castro, September 30, 1999.
Raúl, a 1994 medical graduate: "What am I supposed to do? That's the only way to make some money; with the pennies I get paid here I can't do anything… I'm going to Central América. I hear they're going to pay us 50 dollars a month there. Imagine that!"
Marcos, a 1993 graduate: "My wife's in Africa. They pay better there and with those savings we'll finally have our own home; otherwise we'll have to spend the rest of our lives living behind the office…"
Lucía, a 1998 graduate: "I wouldn't go if you tied me."
Alberto, a 1986 graduate: "Listen, those are all tales. I'm not leaving, and when I do, it will be to the U. S."
"Our medical workers are not to be found in the cities, because our medical programs abroad are not meant for the capitals or for the great cities, but for the most difficult places, where often times a physician has never gone…" - Fidel Castro, September 30, 1999.
Marcos: "My wife has even been frightened by lions and serpents. But, you can imagine, you have to make sacrifices. She's dying to come back. Our children are with their grandparents, since I can't take care of them. They are dying to see her. I'm having a hell of a difficult time. I've
been alone for two years now. Fortunately, she'll soon be back, and most important, with the savings for the house."
Ernesto: "I don't want to hear about it. They say AIDS is rampant. I understand a physician who's originally from near here caught it while operating…"
"…in any capitalist country it costs approximately 30,000 dollars a year to study medicine, but our country will not steal even one brain of the ones we educate here (referring to the foreigners educated in Cuba)" - Fidel Castro, September 30, 1999.
Raúl: "We don't need them, we have an excess of physicians here. He does all that to gain favor with other countries so they'll vote in his favor in Geneva."
"Cuba has more than sixty-five thousand physicians…" - Fidel Castro, September 30, 1999.
Mario, a 1992 graduate, served abroad for two years: "Listen, I worked in Cuba for five years and didn't get a thing. Now I have a house, a TV, a VCR, and I'm thinking, get this, of buying a car."
Raúl: "A doctor? I'm more like a slave here."
"In the Latin American School of Medicine we don't teach political subject matter… as we do in all our Universities." - Fidel Castro, November 15, 1999, at the inauguration of the Latin American School of Medicine, where students from throughout Latin America are trained.
Raúl: "I actually had to join the Youth (Communist Youth League) so they'd let me travel. I also entered the lottery (U.S. visa lottery). I don't know what I'm going to do if the lottery comes through when I'm abroad. I guess I'll have to stay, even if I never see my family again,
because if they get their hands on me after that, they'll pulverize me. Listen, Lucía graduated the same year I did. They interviewed her for TV when she went abroad. What an internationalist! She spoke like a true revolutionary! She and I entered the lottery together… we have to get out
of here, take whatever opportunity…, nothing good can come out of this."
Versión original en español
CubaNet does not require sole rights from its contributors. We authorize the reproduction and distribution of this article as long as the source is credited.
|