Tangeni Amupadhi. The Namibian. September 8, 2000. AllAfrica.com
Namibia, under pressure from Cuba, has withdrawn a job offer to a volunteer doctor to force him and others to return to Cuba when their mission ends.
The future of at least four other doctors, whose contracts expire this year, is uncertain after they indicated they too want to remain in Namibia.
This policy of forcing doctors to return to Cuba has already caused some doctors to flee Namibia and take up employment in countries such as Angola and Germany, Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Dr Kalumbi Shangula confirmed on inquiry yesterday.
It also emerged that the Cuban volunteers are very closely monitored.
Their passports are confiscated by the Cuban Embassy when they enter Namibia, they need permission to leave Rehoboth to visit in Windhoek, for example, and they are taken to the airport by officials who give them their passports a few minutes before they board the flight back to Cuba.
Doctor Margen Venero's eagerness to work for Government was shattered yesterday after a lengthy meeting on Wednesday between the Ministry of Health and Cuban officials.
Ministry sources told The Namibian the meeting was held for the Cubans to "remind" the Namibians that the doctors are obliged to return to Cuba.
However, Shangula dismissed suggestions that pressure was exerted by the embassy.
Asked to explain how Venero had been appointed despite the agreement, Shangula said it "was an over3sight on our part ... because the recruitment of doctors is not done centrally"."
"His contract here has ended but his contract in Cuba is still valid," said Shangula."
"He has to formalise the termination of his employment with the Cuban government and then he can apply to us.
So, it is the procedure which is wrong.
I mean he has to go back to Cuba according to the agreement which he signed with the Cuban government," Shangula said.
One Cuban doctor said returning to Cuba would be like giving up on life.
A return ticket costs nearly N$11 000 and to terminate their state contract could cost between N$5 000 and N$6 000."
"They will make it difficult to get a passport and they will never employ you.
The state controls everything," said the doctor.
The Namibian was unable to get Venero for comment.
This week he was on an orientation programme at State hospitals in Windhoek as Government had wanted to post him to Omaruru.
Sources close to the Cuban doctorsO said trouble began early this year when two volunteer doctors at Oshakati fled Namibia to avoid returning to Cuba.
The Economic Counsellor in the Cuban embassy, Lazaro Artola, reportedly went to Oshakati and told remaining doctors that they need not "run away" and should let the embassy know in order to facilitate their stay.
Artola declined to comment.
He said this reporter was "not a serious person" because of a story about striking Cuban doctors, which, he said, was inaccurate.
Venero took up the embassy's offer.
When four of his colleagues followed, the embassy apparently told them to write letters terminating their Cuban contracts.
However, their efforts to obtain passports to enable them to apply for jobs were frustrated.
Referring to them as deserters, an embassy official said the doctors no longer fell under the responsibility of the embassy, but would still be provided with consular services.
Several Cuban doctors have "deserted" while in Namibia over the past few years."
"There were cases like that ... some took up employment in other countries.
I understand there is one who is now in Germany," Shangula confirmed yesterday.
Cuban doctors are a source of relief given Namibia's acute shortage of medical practitioners.
Up to 55 doctors are provided in terms of an agreement between the Cuban and Namibian governments.
A friend of some of the doctors said yesterday: "They should explain to the doctors when they leave Cuba that they are not allowed to fall in love or get married."
"The Embassy did not respond to questions faxed to them on Wednesday.
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