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Thursday, Sept. 21, 2000
WASHINGTON – Two Cuban doctors Wednesday accused the Castro regime of
offering tourists and members of the Cuban communist hierarchy better health
care than the average Cuban and said that was the main reason they defected to
the United States.
Drs. Leonel Cordova Rodriquez and Noris Pena Martinez defected in May while
on a Cuban medical mission to Zimbabwe. After nearly being sent back to Cuba,
imprisoned in Zimbabwe and sent to Sweden, the doctors finally reached Miami and
are political refugees in the U.S.
Rodriguez, who speaks little English, said at a luncheon meeting at the
Heritage Foundation that "in the last few years, the problem of keeping up
with the health care of the Cuban population has gotten worse."
Some Are More Equal Than Others
"The different services, depending on who you are, the conditions for
those in our field, the misuse of resources and the level of satisfaction of
health workers are elements of trouble brought by those responsible in the
totalitarian regime imposed by communism in Cuba.
"In the meantime," Rodriguez continued, "foreign tourists and
Cuban revolutionary leaders enjoy the best medical attention and resources in
well-equipped hospitals without feeling the lack of resources that the Cuban
population (endures)."
Rodriguez said you have to be a member of Cuba's communist hierarchy to get
top health care services, including the best medicines.
A Warning to Plans for Socialized Medicine in U.S.?
"They have everything necessary to attend the patient. Any kind of
medicine. It doesn't matter if the medicines came from United States. ... They
have the best and the most advanced laboratory equipment.
"But it's very different when the Cuban people have to go to the
hospital. If you are a member of the Communist Party, you are to receive the
best attention. But you have to be a very high member of the Communist Party,"
Rodriguez said.
Both doctors believe Cuba steals American medical ideas and methods and
adopts them as their own in teaching medical courses.
"They say that the methods that are utilized at the medical school in
Havana are American methods and the textbooks are also American textbooks,"
Martinez said, speaking through an interpreter.
Doctors Say Ending Embargo Won't Help
Neither physician believes that relaxing the U.S. economic embargo against
Cuba will help the citizens of that island nation.
"The Cuban people, whether there is an embargo or not, will suffer the
consequences," Martinez said.
Rodriguez said: "The U.S. embargo on Cuba does not affect the people
but directly affects the Castro regime.
"Any kind of deal with Fidel Castro is time wasted. Neither food nor
medicine is going to reach the people. There are many organizations in Cuba that
it will reach to provide the people such items, but Castro will not allow it."
Rodriguez is a physician and Martinez is a dentist. They decided to defect
while in Zimbabwe taking part in a Cuban medical mission.
A Nightmare Journey to Freedom
After a month in detention in Zimbabwe, the pair wound up in Stockholm,
Sweden, where they were granted U.S. political asylum by the U.S. Embassy. They
are in the United States under "political refugee" status.
Zimbabwe security agents arrested the doctors May 24, a few hours before a
scheduled asylum interview, and forced them to secretly board a European
commercial aircraft with Havana as the final destination.
But the plan hit a snag in South Africa after the pilot refused to fly them
any farther. The doctors slipped a note to airline officials saying they had
been kidnapped after denouncing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
South African authorities sent the doctors back to Zimbabwe's capital city
of Harare, where they stayed in custody until the United Nations High Commission
on Refugees learned about the doctors' plight and convinced Zimbabwe's regime to
release them.
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