Cuba is pulling thousands of doctors out of Brazil, after what it called “contemptuous and threatening” remarks by president-elect Jair Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n
The far-right leader, who takes office on 1 January, had questioned the doctors’ qualifications.<\/p>\n
He also accused Cuba’s communist government of keeping 75% of their pay, and refusing to let their families join them.<\/p>\n
The pull-out could disrupt healthcare for millions of Brazilians.<\/p>\n
Healthcare is Cuba’s most lucrative export. The “More Doctors” aid programme operates in 67 countries, and makes the island $11bn a year.<\/p>\n
Around 8,000 Cuban doctors have been working in Brazil’s poorest and remotest areas under the scheme.<\/p>\n
Cuba has said they will all be summoned home by the end of December. However, a Brazilian diplomatic source told AFP that 2,000 will likely stay put due to personal ties.<\/p>\n
Brazilian mayors have warned that up to 30 million people are facing a care crisis – many in areas where local doctors refuse to go.<\/p>\n
The first 196 doctors to leave have already been greeted in Havana by Cuba’s deputy health minister.<\/p>\n
Cuban news agency ACN said the medics were “happy to have fulfilled their mission,” but “worried about what awaits the [Brazilian] people with the newly-elected president”.<\/p>\n
Brazil’s health ministry said on Friday that it would start selecting local doctors to replace the departing Cubans later this month<\/p>\n
source: bbc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cuba is pulling thousands of doctors out of Brazil, after what it called “contemptuous and threatening” remarks by president-elect Jair Bolsonaro. The far-right leader, who takes office on 1 January, had questioned the doctors’ qualifications. He also accused Cuba’s communist government of keeping 75% of their pay, and refusing to let their families join them. The pull-out could disrupt healthcare… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2546,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2545\/revisions\/2546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}