Bogota, Colombia
Hector Zelaya walks cautiously in an deserted ophthalmology clinic in Honduras on the sluggish tempo of somebody who continues to be studying to see once more.
The stout, middle-aged man, was resulting from have cataract surgical procedure in April on the clinic in Catacamas, which sits on the bottom slopes of a bushy hill some 4 hours east of Tegucigalpa, the nation’s capital.
But his surgical procedure was abruptly canceled when the Honduran authorities terminated its contract in March with “Mission Miracle,” a Cuban public well being program that sends hundreds of medical staff to growing nations but has additionally been criticized by the US and others as involving compelled labor.
The order got here from President Nasry “Tito” Asfura, a conservative backed in final 12 months’s election by US President Donald Trump, who stated the deployment of Cuban doctors, nurses and different medical specialists in Honduras was not compliant with native laws.
Honduras is amongst a number of countries within the Americas to announce the cancellation of their contracts with the Cuban medical missions – which is a foreign policy cornerstone and key supply of overseas money for the socialist island-nation.
Jamaica, Guyana, Guatemala and even Venezuela – which has seen by far the most important deployment of Cuban doctors up to now 20 years – have additionally severed or are within the means of cancelling their contracts with the Cuban medical missions.
Havana has criticized the choices, claiming they are “edicts from Washington” because the Trump administration has pushed an all-out diplomatic and financial pressure campaign on Cuba. Last week, the US authorities indicted 94-year-old former Cuban President Raúl Castro, in a transfer that echoes steps taken forward of the ouster of Venezuela’s former President Nicolas Maduro.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who’s the son of Cuban immigrants, has been outspoken in opposition to this system, saying in February 2025, that the US would impose visa restrictions on third-party authorities officers liable for the Cuban medical missions.
Action quickly adopted: within the final 12 months, he has introduced visa restrictions for officers from Central America, Africa, the Caribbean, and Brazil.
The State Department has “taken steps to restrict visa issuance to Cuban and complicit third-country government officials and individuals responsible for Cuba’s exploitative labor export program. We will promote accountability for the Cuban regime for oppressing its people and those who profit from forced labor,” Rubio stated.
But for a lot of low-income rural employees like himself, Zelaya stated the Cuban program was the one probability to obtain inexpensive healthcare.
Depending on the world, the typical month-to-month wage in Honduras ranges from $400 to $800, and the Cuban clinic in Catacamas was the one public well being possibility for eye surgical procedure within the largest province within the nation.
Zeleya ended up spending $2,250, paid for with the assistance of his household, at a non-public clinic for the operation, he stated.
“Most of the people here wouldn’t be able to pay for that,” he stated.
Mixing politics and well being
Cuban medical missions have lengthy been the topic of debate: on the one hand the brigades –– as these deployments are identified in Cuba –– are seen as a automobile to increase public well being to distant areas corresponding to Catacamas. Meanwhile, critics see them as a PR software on the service of an authoritarian dictatorship relationship again to the Nineteen Sixties.
In April, a prolonged report from the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights tried to set the report straight, recognizing the optimistic contribution from the brigades whereas on the similar time alleging compelled labor practices and coercive strategies by the hands of the Cuban management.
Medical employees are routinely underpaid and obtain a fraction of what their host countries pay for his or her providers, they are not allowed to go away or to ascertain relationships with the communities they are despatched to, and are requested to voice political messages on behalf of the revolution or the native governments, the report wrote.
Cuba has lengthy denied comparable accusations and the Cuban authorities didn’t reply to a sequence of questions associated to the missions from NCS.
Mission personnel who communicate brazenly from Cuba, the place freedom of expression is restricted, say they assist the brigades as channels to foster worldwide solidarity.
In 2022, leftwing portal Breakthrough News interviewed a Cuban physician who labored in Guatemala, Liberia, in addition to Italy and Portugal, when European Union countries welcomed the missions through the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our philosophy is to help anyone we can,” Dr. Juan Aleman stated, outlining the historical past of the medical brigades since their inception within the Nineteen Fifties as an altruistic gesture by the late Cuban chief Fidel Castro.
Though the fact is extra advanced, as Cuba additionally makes use of the brigades to boost funds for the federal government. A State Department web site estimates Cuba earns as a lot as $4 billion per 12 months, a determine Havana disputes.
Last 12 months, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel defended his nation’s “right to use medical cooperation as a source of income.” As Cuba is below a US -embargo and commerce alternatives are restricted, the medical brigades have develop into an export like some other good, he argued.
Two former Cuban medical professionals working in Venezuela confirmed the IACHR allegations to NCS. Asking to talk anonymously to guard their households, each stated they joined the missions searching for financial alternatives unavailable in Cuba however grew disillusioned with the exploitation by the hands of superiors and the system.
One of them, a 35 years-old physiotherapist, served in two completely different missions to the state between 2017 and 2024, earlier than returning to Cuba on the finish of his deployment. He left the nation for good final 12 months.
“In Cuba, we joke that your salary can either cover your food, your clothes or your shoes, but not the three of them at a time… Through the mission I was able to save money, but then I decided to leave,” he instructed NCS.
The physiotherapist was 26-year-old when he first traveled to Venezuela –– it was the primary time he had set foot out of Cuba. Venezuela was in an financial disaster in 2017, however it nonetheless made an impression on him. “I remember the first time I went to a supermarket, I could not believe I could buy whatever I wanted with my own salary,” he instructed NCS.
He was capable of save over $6,000 throughout his first deployment, a considerable amount of money for any Cuban.
He has since moved to Colombia the place, due to the coaching from the missions, he has been capable of finding a job in a non-public clinic.
The brigades’ medical expertise are nonetheless related, however the thought of public well being missions on the service of a rustic’s geopolitical pursuits is old-fashioned, he stated.
“Cuba is like a bubble, and when you’re inside, they tell you the rest of the world is bad. When actually, it’s only when you leave that you start opening your eyes,” he stated. “My dream is to return, one day, but to go back it needs to be a different Cuba.”