| 12/25/2020 – 11:17 am (GMT-4)
The dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Panama, Enrique Mendoza, resigned from the Health Advisory Council (CCS) after the arrival of more than 200 Cuban doctors, hired by the government to treat coronavirus patients.
“I have been consistent in my position that the practice of medicine should not be allowed to foreign nationals who do not comply with the laws of the Republic,” Mendoza told Health Minister Luis Francisco Sucre in a letter revealed by the newspaper The Press.
In recent years, Panama has established legal and academic mechanisms to ensure the knowledge and skills of health professionals, recalled Mendoza, who he described as “collateral damage” from the coronavirus pandemic, ignorance and destruction. of the regulations.
During this year the various Panamanian teaching and government institutions have allowed about 400 inpatients to work in the country’s hospitals and by 2021 will begin their work more than 300, including general practitioners and residents, following national laws, said the dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Panama, in its letter of resignation to the CCS.
The Health Advisory Council was created in June. as an advisory body to the President of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, on strategies to continue the fight against COVID-19, according to the presidential website, and is made up of experts in the field of medical sciences and distinguished careers, in the public and private spheres.
More than 200 Cuban doctors arrived in Panama on FridayUnder the auspices of a bilateral contract, details and financial sum have not been disclosed by the governments of Panama and Cuba, except for the jobs: West Panama, Chiriquí and the capital.
In August, the executive director of the Cuba Archive, María C. Werlau, urged the Panamanian Minister of Health to hire Cuban health workers who emigrated and resided on the island, outside the Castro government and through the initiative without for-profit Free Cuban Doctors against COVID-19.
“Hiring Cuban professionals directly, without the mediation of the Cuban state, is a practical and humanitarian solution that will evade legal repercussions. His government would avoid being part of a business through which Cuba exploits and subjects medical personnel to serious violations. and systematic of their rights, Maria Werlau, executive director of Arxiu Cuba, stated in a letter.
Medical missions promoted by the Government of Havana make services more expensive, as it is mandatory to hire staff to manage workers, when in reality they are officials whose function is to “monitor and discipline,” Werlau said.
recently the main peace medical union rejected the return of Cuban doctors to Bolivia and their position was supported by the Universidad Mayor de Sant Andreu, the main state center for university studies, which has never accepted the approval of medical degrees from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), based in Havana.
Members of Cuban civil society and some governments, such as the United States, have denounced to the international community the use of doctors by the island’s government to obtain foreign currency and, in turn, to use them as exporters of communist ideology.
The Cuban government has rejected the allegations, presenting the sale of medical services as a solidarity initiative, but various international media have offered details of the contracts signed between the parties for doctors on the island to offer their services in exchange for unequal wages than for UN experts this is a form of “forced labor”.
In October, a Kenyan newspaper revealed that Cuba charges $ 13 million a year to the government of this African country for the work of “obedient” doctors. Precisely in Kenya they were Cuban doctors Assel Herrera and Orlando “Landy” Rodríguez kidnapped, who remain in the hands of a Somali terrorist group since April 2019, demanding a $ 1.5 million ransom for both doctors.