CUBA IMPOSES RESTRICTIONS ON DOCTORS TO COMBAT "BRAIN DRAIN" TO US

Cuba reinstates controls on doctors willing to travel abroad

Havana, 19 Shafar 1437/2 Desember 2015 (MINA) – The Cuban government announced it is reinstating a travel permit requirement on doctors in an effort to stem the tide of doctors moving to the United States.

Cuban doctors will need to get the permission of the government’s Health Ministry to leave the country — a major reversal of Cuba’s 2013 policy of unrestricted travel for citizens, Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) quoted SPA as reporting.

Cuba said the U.S. government’s 2006 Parole Program for Cuban Medical Professionals, which allows for Cuban health professionals working in a third country to defect to the United States, was created with an eye ‘toward damaging our country’s international medical cooperation programs, and depriving Cuba and beneficiary countries of these vital, much-needed human resources,’ the Cuban government said in a statement.

The travel restriction will begin on Monday. The Cuban government said at least 500,000 of the country’s 5 million workers are medical professionals.

The new policy was announced hours after the end of a meeting Monday between US and Cuban negotiators in Washington to address a crisis in Cuban migration, which has reached its highest levels in at least two decades. Cuba complained that the US said it had no plans to change Cold War-era policies that give automatic legal residency to Cuban immigrants.

Many Cuban doctors cite low pay, poor working conditions and the possibility of well-compensated jobs in other countries as their primary reasons for emigrating. The Cuban government places the blame on the US policy of granting automatic legal residency to Cuban immigrants, with special fast-track benefits for doctors who abandon government medical missions overseas.

The government announcement cited anaesthesiology, neurosurgery, obstetrics and gynecology and neonatal care as among the specialities worst hit by emigration of doctors in recent years.

In a meeting between U.S. and Cuban diplomats, the Cuban government urged American officials to change the legal status of Cuban refugees to make it more difficult for those fleeing communism to find asylum, and easier for the communist regime of Raúl Castro to restrict its citizens’ mobility. (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)