| 25/12/2020 – 11:17 PM (GMT-4)
The Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at 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 remained consistent in my position that foreign citizens who do not comply with the laws of the Republic should not be allowed to practice medicine,” Mendoza said in a letter from the newspaper to the Minister of Health, Luis Francisco Sucre. The press.
In recent years, Panama has put in place legal and academic mechanisms to ensure the knowledge and skills of health professionals, Mendoza recalled, describing ignorance and destruction of regulations as “collateral damage” from the coronavirus pandemic.
During this year, the various Panamanian educational and government agencies have allowed some 400 in-house doctors to work in the country’s hospitals and by 2021, more than 300 will begin their work, including general practitioners and residents, according to national laws, explained the dean of the faculty. of Medicine from the University of Panama, in its letter of resignation to the CCS.
The Health Advisory Council was established in June. as an advisory body to the President of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, in the strategies to continue the fight against COVID-19, according to the Presidential website, and is composed of medical science experts with distinguished careers, in the public and private.
More than 200 Cuban doctors arrived in Panama on Friday, protected by a bilateral contract, the details and financial amount of which have not been disclosed by the governments of Panama and Cuba, with the exception of the places of work: Panama Oeste, Chiriquí and the capital.
In August, the Executive Director of Cuba Archive, María C. Werlau, urged the Panamanian Minister of Health to hire Cuban health workers who emigrated and lived on the island, outside the Castro government and through the Doctors non-profit initiative. Cubanos Libres against COVID-19.
“Hiring Cuban professionals directly, without the intervention of the Cuban state, is a practical and humanitarian solution that will avoid legal consequences. Your government would avoid being part of a company that exploits Cuba and subjects medical personnel to serious and systematic violations. their rights, stated in a letter María Werlau, Executive Director of the Cuba Archives.
The medical missions promoted by the Havana government make the services more expensive as it is mandatory to hire personnel to manage the workers, when in reality they are civil servants whose function it is to “monitor and discipline”, Werlau said.
Recently, La Paz’s main medical union rejected the return of Cuban doctors to Bolivia and its position was supported by the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, the main state center for university studies, which has never accepted the homologation of medical degrees from the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), located in Havana.
Members of Cuban civil society and some governments, such as the United States, have denounced to the international community the island government’s use of doctors to obtain foreign currency and, in turn, are using them as exporters of communist ideology.
The Cuban government has rejected these allegations and has proposed the sale of medical services as a solidarity initiative, but several international media outlets have provided details of the contracts concluded between the parties for the island’s doctors to provide their services in exchange for salaries . wrong than before UN experts are dealing with a form of “forced labor”.
A Kenyan newspaper announced this in October C.uba charges the government of that African country $ 13 million annually for the work of “obedient” doctors. Were precisely in Kenya Cuban doctors Assel Herrera and Orlando “Landy” Rodríguez kidnapped, held by Somali terrorist group since April 2019, demand a ransom of $ 1.5 million for both doctors.