Escape Or Get Married - The Dilemma Of Cuban Doctors In Brazil

Escape Or Get Married: The Dilemma Of Cuban Doctors In Brazil /
14ymedio, Mario Penton

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 16 October 2016 — Yohan Batista Martí
spent nearly four months hiding to avoid persecution by the authorities
of the Cuban Medical Mission in Brazil. Like him, thousands of Cuban
doctors have fled to the United States before the date of their return
to the island. Escaping or marrying a local resident are the best
options for these health professionals.

"I had to hide. I commented to the Brazilian in charge of the mission
that I was going to Cuba on vacation and that was how I escaped from the
region of Piaui in the north, but when they realized I had defected they
began to look for me," Batista told this newspaper.

The cooperation program with Brazil was announced three years ago as a
"stimulus mission" for the best Cuban professionals. The initiative was
officially launched to support Brazil's Workers Party (PT) and
then-President Dilma Rousseff, considered a "friend of Cuba."

During their work in the program each doctor receives a salary
equivalent to 1,000 dollars US, 600 paid in Brazil and the other 400
deposited in a bank on the island and payable on their return. This
represents less than one-third of the $3,300 that the Brazilian
government pays the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to be paid
to the state Cuban Medical Services.

Many doctors, however, pass up the money accumulated in Cuba and choose
to flee. Throughout the country, this year alone, 1,439 health
professionals have escaped Brazil to the United States, taking advantage
of the US Professional Parole program, a visa program started under
President George W. Bush which over the last decade has brought more
than 8,000 of these workers to the US.

Other doctors have resorted to the option of marrying Brazilian citizens
to avoid forced return.

"The Cuban government benefited from the money due us and now they want
others to come so they can do the same," a doctor working in the region
of Minas Gerais and who requested anonymity told this newspaper. The
health professional says they are "alarmed" by the increase in marriages
between Cubans and Brazilians for the former to obtain residency.

Marriages with foreigners and loving relationships are a taboo subject
on the missions. The disciplinary regulations of civil workers abroad
regulates that "if any loving relationship develops with natives it must
be reported immediately and be consistent with the revolutionary thought
of our stay and in no measure be excessive" (sic).

In June 2015, a case came into the public spotlight and exposed the
limitations under which Cuban doctors live. After nine months of a legal
battle the Cuban doctor Adrian Estrada Barber managed to marry the
Brazilian pharmacist Letícia Santos Pedroso. "I met the woman of my
life," said the proud husband on hearing the court ruling.

Estrada Barber is just one case among hundreds. During the first ten
months of this year more than 1,600 Cuban doctors took the exam to
revalidate their titles in Brazil and win contracts on their own. They
make up the largest group of foreigners who have applied for recognition
of their university degree in the South American giant.

After the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the Cuban government pressured
the Brazilian authorities to renegotiate the medical contract and
obtained a 9% increase in payment. The Plaza of the Revolution also
achieved an increase of 10% for food for doctors in indigenous areas,
which will be effective in January 2017.

The government of Raul Castro has demanded the doctors return to the
island when their "lease" expires. After much prodding, Brazilian
authorities managed to get Cuba to reluctantly reauthorize the married
doctors to be contracted for another three years.

Brazilian Minister of Health Ricardo Barros declared that in the middle
of this year he had asked the Cuban Government and the Pan American
Health Organization (PAHO) to relax the conditions that force the
doctors to return to the island, because,"More than 1,000 have married
Brazilians and some have children," the official said.

After hiding as a fugitive, Batista currently lives in Miami. From that
city he related how he first tried to flee to Argentina but then
traveled to Brasilia to seek refuge in the US embassy. "Everything has
to be done in secret. A colleague in Venezuela who said she wanted to
leave the mission was accused of a robbery that never happened and
returned to Cuba," he recalls.

Although he is a general practitioner abd also has a specialty in
physical rehabilitation medicine he has had to start from scratch in
Miami. "I deliver results of laboratory tests and study to revalidate my
title," he says proudly, while helping others through social networks to
"restore the dignity of Cuban medicine."­­­

Source: Escape Or Get Married: The Dilemma Of Cuban Doctors In Brazil /
14ymedio, Mario Penton – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/escape-or-get-married-the-dilemma-of-cuban-doctors-in-brazil-14ymedio-mario-penton/