Venezuela Says Foes Bribing Cuban Doctors to Defect

[DuctapeFatwa]

Venezuela's health minister accused opponents of President Hugo Chavez on Thursday of trying to bribe Cuban doctors to defect from a health program at the center of a growing political alliance between Caracas and Havana.

Roger Capella was responding to local media reports that a number of the more than 10,000 Cubans working in the "Inside the Barrio" program had left their posts and were seeking asylum in third countries.

Left-winger Chavez has made the program, which brings primary health care to poor Venezuelan slum dwellers, the flagship of his cooperative ties with Cuba's communist president, Fidel Castro.

Although Venezuelan officials declined to confirm any defections, diplomatic sources said a number of Cuban doctors had deserted the joint project. "They are offering them places to study, posts in private medicine, cars, houses, cash and trips to the U.S," he told the state news agency Venpres. "

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20040129_621.html

[LostInTheMaise]

1. Why would they not defect?

A practice of medicine in a free country would certainly pay more than in a socialist or communist regime. I can't say that I would blame them.

[plurality]

2. damn straight!

to hell with healing the poor and infirm, who would want to do that when there's Porsches and golf trips to be had!

[Just Me]

4. I thought the practice was about LIFE, not the money,...

,...oh, yeah, I forgot,...capitalism precludes such nobility or ethics. All of life is about "stuff" and "gadgets",...to hell with human beings or the value of human existence.

Whoops!!!!

[LostInTheMaise]

8. Are you a doctor?

Do you work for peanuts? Most people want to be comfortable and don't consider their services as charity.

[Just Me]

12. I used to be a lawyer and considered truth greater

than money, period. Of course, "most people want to be comfortable",...as you have quite accurately pointed out.

Principles are certainly not rewarded in this broken capitalist culture,...are they?

Who "pays" for that?

Who is paying for the prioritization of the dollar over principles and values?

Who will pay for that particular priority?

[LostInTheMaise]

13. Who pays?

When I was a child my mother paid for me. Now that I must fend for myself I work 60 hours a week to be comfortable. I know there is a free lunch out there but I would rather earn my keep and put in my hours.

I sleep better that way. If someone is able to work and isn't then more power to them if they can live with it.

[Just Me]

30. That is one of the most non-responsive, least reasoned posts,...

,...I have ever read. What does your working 60 hours a week to "be comfortable" have to do with professional ethics exercised by those who are already living "comfortably"? What does your post have to do with fundamental priceless principles of life, truth, compassion, even some sacrifice by every single human being (including ALL those who are in the top 5% class bracket or who are well-educated or who have had good fortune)?

Try being focused and responsive instead of inserting an emotional or deflective point.

[HawkerHurricane]

3. Well, good.

"Let's get those incompetent quacks out of Venezuala and send them somewhere where they can do less harm." - My Brother in Law, a Venezualan Doctor who works in a clinic in the Barrios of Caracas.

[DuctapeFatwa]

6. Now Venezuela's poorest citizens can have the same freedom Americans do

to purchase all the medical care they can afford!

[HawkerHurricane]

7. Health Care in Venezuala...

has included public hospitals for 40-50 years now.

And my Bro-in-law works in one. Getting rid of the Cubans will not shut him down and will actually increase the quality of the care since he won't have incompetents to keep track of.

Yeah, free health care, from a doctor that any decent school would have thrown out for stupidity... just what every American wants.

[DuctapeFatwa]

10. I'm not sure people who are familiar with Cuban doctors as a group would

be as likely to agree with you as those who have not.

Obviously, the ones who were successfully bribed away from Venezuela are hardly good examples of ethical priorities, but regardless of your opinion of Fidel's politics, people throughout the world who have suffered disasters have been mighty happy to see those Cuban medical boats sail in.

In some Latin American nations, conflicts have arisen because more people went to the Cuban doctors, abandoning their erstwhile physicians.

Medicine and literacy are two things that Cuba does very very well.

[HawkerHurricane]

21. Personally, I know no Cuban Doctors...

BUT I have a Brother in Law, a surgeon, who works with several. He says they are incompetent. He wishes they would go away, because they are causing more problems than they are solving. Perhaps he got the three worst Cuban doctors on the planet. Perhaps not. Perhaps he will finally accept the job offer from Canada and stop working for the Venezualan government since they keep on cutting his clinic funding and forcing him to work with incompetents.

In a anecdote told to me first person and one from someone not in the country, I must go with the first person.

[DuctapeFatwa]

22. I can sympathize with your brother, I have some opinions few agree with

also.

And considering Cuban doctors incompetent is kind of like considering that the Dutch suck at growing tulips.

Or it could be that your brother in law just happens to know exceptionally bad Cuban doctors, in which case he should consider changing his situation and getting involved with Hugo's program so that he can get to know a wider variety, and be part of history too :)

[bemildred]

26. This is a fairly interesting issue.

Hawk has brought up his BIL before, and since I know Hawk
I do not doubt what he says. I also know that Cuba has a
thriving medical products and services business going with
other 3rd world countries and some moderately impressive
R&D notches on its belt; they seem to have carved themselves
out a real economic niche there. There appear to be some
other Latin American countries that are also interested in
the Cubans services in this regard.

How are we to explain this cognitive disconnect? I am not going
to Cuba or anywhere else to see for myself, so I must speculate.

My assumption is that what the Cuban doctors are doing is not
the same in some respects as what doctors in conventional western
medicine do. This makes a good deal of sense since Cuba, for
instance, and other 3rd world countries do not have the technical
base for conventional western medicince in the first place. This
leads to Cuban doctors that are incompetent by the standards of
conventional western medicine and yet perceived as very useful
and helpful in environments where they attempt to serve the
needs of 3rd world citizens with 3rd world means.

Compare this with medical staff in Africa who reused needles,
exacerbating the AIDS epidemic there because they had few
needles. This is undoubtedly "incompetent" by Western standards,
but these people are still appreciated and sought out for help in
their native situation, because there is nothing else.

I do not know what the competence of these Cuban medical people
is in their own terms, but it seems quite likely that a good deal
of such appreciation as they get is due to their being there to
serve people who would not otherwise be served at all, and to
their having a certain competence with the means they are accustomed
to.

In defense of African medical staff, I want to point out that a
good deal of the damage was done before Western Medicine itself had
figured out what was up with AIDS.

[DuctapeFatwa]

28. I do not doubt that the brother in law is displeased with Cuban doctors

however I will stand by my assertion that few share the brother in law's opinion.

Nor can I agree that the recognized (except by the US) exceptional quality of Cuban medicine is due to things like washing hands before surgery and using sterile needles.

Cuba may have many problems, and the US may be extremely displeased with Castro, but that does not change the fact that Cuban medicine, even by the hallowed "western standards" is again with the notable exception of the US, pretty universally considered to be exceptional.

post 27 below has some good starting points for learning more about (non US) opinions of others on the subject.

[bemildred]

33. I see I have been misunderstood.

I was discussing how presumably well-meaning people might have
such conflicting points of view. Perhaps I got a bit far afield
and you thought I was slipping in propaganda points.

I would myself prefer Cuban style medicine to what is available to
me here. I avoid all non-acute care in this country, both because
I have no insurance and it is extremely expensive, and because I
find the American medical system annoying to deal with and dangerous
to your well-being unless approached with ones shields up.

[DuctapeFatwa]

34. What I disagreed with about your post is the part about the technical base

which Cuba does have, and without which they would not have the reputation they have and deserve today.

While Cuba has suffered, and terribly, from the US blockade, the US has not been successful in isolating Cuba from all other contact with the rest of the world, though not for lack of trying.

The result is that while the US can and does do a very efficient job of preventing Cuba from getting cars and planes and building materials, it has not been able to keep Cuban doctors from keeping up with science, and has not been totally successful in preventing other countries from sending them equipment.

And as someone pointed out, Cuba has made a deliberate effort to excel in medicine, both practice, instruction and R&D, and that is where its priorities are.

If Cuba is going to get something smuggled in, it will be more likely to be electron microscopes than electric blenders.

I didn't think that you were slipping in propaganda points, and I can understand your speculation that the accolades Cuba has received for its health care in the developing world could be just a polite sort of damning by faint praise, and it is true that in many places in the Majority world, health care is deplorable, and for the poor, practically non-existent, and things like basic sanitation really CAN make a tremendous difference, but to put it in the terms that one hears anecdotally from people, the cuban doctors "cure things Americans can't." :D

[bemildred]

35. We mean different things here by "technical base".

But let's leave it, I don't see anything of substance
that we actually disagree about.

[Just Me]

31. Admirable "big picture" perspective, "bemildred",...

,...I truly admire your articulation of a broader perspective which includes the nuances of reality necessary for all of us to address problems instead of being stuck in the symptoms.

[Judi Lynn]

27. they must be doing SOMETHING right, DuctapeFatwa

to have raised the level of health in Cuba to its current standards, after poor people in Cuba up through the 1950's were simply out of luck:

(snip) Cuban achievements in the health care field are impressive. According to UNICEF's 'State of the Worlds Children 2004,' Cuba's infant mortality rate is 6.3 deaths per 1000 live births, compared to Latin American nations with an average of 32.8 per 1000 births, and a U.S. rate of 7 per 1000 births. Cuba provides 100 percent free health care to all citizens, and has some of the best health indicators in all of Latin America, with about 1 doctor for every 170 people. Cuba also contributes to world health by sending 15,000 health professionals to serve in more than 64 countries in five continents.

Cuba's achievements in the health care field have earned praise from the World Health Organization for being a model for the developing world; particularly in the areas of primary and preventive care. The Center for Defense Information, or CDI, a private research group based in Washington, reported that thanks to Cuba's biotech industry Cubans are immunized against 13 major diseases. The CDI report stated, "Today, Cuba is probably the most vaccinated society on earth."
(snip)

http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/1452.html

[DuctapeFatwa]

29. A while ago, one of the US TV networks, ABC I think, wanted to do a thing

on who has the best health care, so they sent a person with a broken shoulder or something to clinics in Canada, the US, and Cuba.

Their criteria were pretty standard, being seen quickly, how much red tape, efficiency of diagnostic tests, accuracy of diagnosis, treatment, etc.

Cuba won hands down on all points.

The network had a dilemma.

They could not do the show and have Cuba win!

Advertisers and viewers alike would be outraged! They might even get in trouble with the government.

So they decided the only thing they could do was say some nice things about everybody but fudge their actual qualitative scoring so that Canada would win by a nose.

I'm not sure if they ever even aired the show.

[LostInTheMaise]

11. Free health care?

I don't know of any doctor that works for free. Where do you get the "free" from?

[Dirk39]

17. WASHINGTON IS CHALLENGED TO EQUAL CUBA'S INFANT MORTALITY RATE

"WASHINGTON IS CHALLENGED TO EQUAL CUBA'S INFANT MORTALITY RATE

Washington, January 3(RHC)-- A reader of the New York Times has
challenged the U.S. government to show infant mortality rates similar to
those gained by Cuba.

In reference to an article that appeared in the New York Times on
December 29th, concerning the island's performance regarding infant
mortality, David Barrigan, who resides in Albany, California, noted that
not a single word in the entire article referred to the U.S.
government's performance in that area of health.

Barrigan recalled that the infant mortality rate registered in the
United States in 1997 was 7.2 for every 1000 live-births. He added that
Cuba -- although a poor, Third World nation -- has continued reducing
its infant mortality rate from 7.1 in 1998 to 6.5 in 1999.

The New York Times reader wonders how it could possibly be that the
United States -- presumably the world's only superpower -- has not been
able to compete with Cuba's infant mortality rate. The answer, he says,
can be found in the failure by U.S. authorities to develop a national
health insurance program as well as the inadequate and insufficient
resources earmarked for preventive medicine."
http://www.radiohc.org/Distributions/Radio_Havana_English/.2000/2000_jan/Radio_Havana_Cuba,_January_3,_2000


Must be the guilt of those incompetent american quacks....
Or could it be that there are simply not enough of them in Washington?

Dirk

[Dirk39]

5. U.S. tax payers are proud to announce:

This is were our money goes:

"They are offering them places to study, posts in private medicine, cars, houses, cash and trips to the U.S,"

Is this counter-health-care or what?
And if they travel for free to the U.S., I have an advice: Simply start to offer free healthcare to U.S. citizens. Within weeks, people will offer you 100.000s of dollars to stop this, cars and free trips to Cuba...

To the one with the annoyed doctor in Venezuela: I'm pretty sure, he's spend his entire live, supporting the poor in Venezuela and now these incompetetent quacks from Cuba invaded and spoiled everything???

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[HawkerHurricane]

9. Not pretending anyone is a saint...

He makes his living working on rich folks 2 days a week, and spends 3-4 days a week at the clinic.

So, you don't give a shit about the quality of health care, as long as it's free and the poor get it?

[Dirk39]

14. I could be wrong...

but could it be the case that he's just a little bit "outsourced". Happens to a lot of people these days. AFAIK even Europeans are travelling to Cuba for health care, who could afford the best healthcare availabe everywhere. If someone makes my job for less money, I would be annoyed, too. Tell me about outsourcing, and I offer you tons of "outsourced" people, claiming it's about quality.
With tenthousands of doctors from Cuba offering healthcare in Venezuela now: Do you really want to tell me, that people like you're brother in law did offer a better and sufficient healthcare for the people in Venezuela?
Could it be possible that he's simply a bit pissed off, like all of us would in a similar situation - at least me, I admit it. Many germans now travel to easteuropean countries, where healthcare is cheaper. You should see the german doctors being concerned with quality-issues and the well-being of those mislead germans...:-)

Dirk

[peacetalksforall]

15. The facts

Cuban medicine, its doctors, and their aid is well recogized as considerable and very good to excellent.

An arrangement to help the poor of Venezuela is of the highest order of humanity that extends beyond politics and borders.

To lure them with riches is no doubt a plot involving the U.S. It dooesn't fit the mold of Canada, Chile, Greece, South Africa.

In the U.S., that type of effort would be led by the Cuban-Americans and their lackies - Reich, Burton, Frisk, etc. etc.

Their agenda would be to hurt Castro.

This type of effort would actually hurt their own people in Cuba - the ones they send billions of dollars to. It would hurt by depriving them of their own doctors. Or depriving the people of other countries which these doctors have helped, including countries that have suffered from natural disasters.

This effort is only of the type that would be facilitated by affiliation with the right wing of our government who go the furtherest extreme to appease Cuban-Americans by allowing them to continue to hold us hostage.

This type of effort requires a lot of money.

The money might be coming from you, the U.S. taxpayers in the form of money passed to CANF to buy the doctors, but it could be coming from recent past thefts such as the laundering processes and profits of fallen and still intact corporations and entities who partner with the right wing. If coming from you, it is money that is probably being pipelined to CANF by an act of partisanship and payoff by our leaders. Or it could be coming from your taxes that go to pay for secret CIA manuevers on behalf of the right wing.

Let's hope this is not true. Let's hope that we don't step this low. Let's hope that it's France or Germany, not us. (Sorry France, sorry Germany, satire on demand). This kind of temptation and dirty trick could not be perpretated by the United States of America - proclaimed the greatest country in the world by some of its citizens. You only have to avert your eyes a little to see us as a pure country with only good intentions. RIght?

[Dirk39]

16. And to say the least...

Venezuela has about 24.1 million inhabitants. Now more than 10.000 of Cubans supporting healthcare now. I'm pretty convinced they didn't invite so much Cubans for fun. I'd like this brother-in-law to prove to me, that the situation for the PEOPLE in Venezuela would be better, if these people would leave the country and leave it to people like him...
Let them have an election about this.
BTW a cuban doctor earns about 50$ a month. Easy to buy. But till now, a lot of attempts have failed - the U.S.A. did try this a lot of times.

Sorry that I can't help you with evil germans or french on this issue - nearly every other issue would have been a match!

I deliver next time,
Dirk

[peacetalksforall]

18. I meant the comment about the French and Germans as a criitque of

the people in this country, the U.S., who play a stupid game of mocking and hating the French and the German - nicely manipulated by our government and its leaders.

[Dirk39]

19. I understood every single word...

it was you, getting me wrong, I promise:-)
Wait, 'till you've send 10.000 american doctors to Europe, to liberate us!
I'm a bit sensitive about this issue. I work in a hospital in Germany, and I have the pleasure to have a friend, who's a dentist. This girl did work for free in some parts of Africa with abpout the lowest infant-mortality rate in Africa, according to the numbers delivered by the US-dominated Worldbank promoting the success of their structural-reforms. The truth: the hospitals are closed, so there are no more people, to count the death. That's hell-th-care, the american way. And now, a funny american is confronting us with concerns about the "quality" of healthcare in Venezuela, delivered by 10.000 cuban doctors.
Venezuela should simply throw all the cuban-doctors out, at least those, who can't be bought. Then they should install a fashist regime. Maybe a concentration camp here,a little massacre there. Noone will care about health-care there, anymore. They will be liberated pretty soon.


Higher Class, blame my english,
Dirk

[Judi Lynn]

20. Wall Street Journal article on Cuban doctors from May, 2002

(snip) The Venezuelan Medical Federation, a national professional group, viscerally opposes the Cuban presence. The Cubans, they argue, are "proselytizing" poor Venezuelans with communist propaganda. What's more, they note that Venezuela already has far more physicians than international health organizations recommend for adequate public-health coverage. Indeed, the federation says about one in five of Venezuela's approximately 45,000 doctors currently is unemployed or underemployed. Instead of importing Cubans, the Chavez government should be improving Venezuela's dilapidated public-health system and boosting doctors' pay, which starts at about $600 a month, the federation says.

But Miguel Requena, dean of the medical school at Caracas's Central University of Venezuela, argues that, for now, there's a genuine need for the Cuban doctors in Venezuela. He concedes that Venezuela has a large number of doctors. However, few of them care to work where they are most needed, as general practitioners in rural or urban primary-care clinics. Almost all the new doctors want to live in Caracas and other big cities and engage in lucrative specialties, such as plastic surgery, he says.

The Cuban doctors, for their part, make it a point to keep a low profile and avoid controversy. They generally live in groups of three or four in rented houses in the communities where they serve. Only three of the hundreds who served here have so far defected to join family in the U.S. All three cases occurred in early 2000, when the first large group of Cubans arrived to provide emergency aid to victims of a devastating flood and mudslide.

The deputy director of the Cuban medical program here, Adalberto Sotolongo, stresses that he and his colleagues came to Venezuela to help poor and sick people, not politicians like Mr. Chavez. As for Venezuela's health-care system, Dr. Sotolongo carefully notes that "there are great inequities that at times seem inexplicable."

The Chavez government says it has a plan to reorient Venezuela's health system to provide complete coverage through local clinics that emphasize preventive medicine. But, in the meantime, says Venezuelan Health Minister María Urbaneja, the Cubans "don't do any harm to anyone" and are "helping a population that's excluded and very needy."
(snip/...)

http://members.attcanada.ca/~dchris/CubaFAQ408.html

[DuctapeFatwa]

23. What?! More than adequate number of docs for POOR PEOPLE!

No wonder the bush regime is after Hugo's blood.

Refusing to turn over the oil is one thing, but this is an OUTRAGE!

Any man who would knowingly cause poor people, many of whom cannot even read and write, with a selection of physicians that is internationally acknowledged to be more than adequate is an imminent threat to national security and America's freedom!

[Judi Lynn]

24. Doesn't it really burn you up? I know I'm steamed!

The very thought of healthy poor people just goes against the grain.

Where's the fun in being rich, then?

By the way, one aspect of defection of professionally skilled Cubans is the expense incurred by the Cuban government in training them is wasted, as they are educated for FREE there.

They are bound to committments for a period of time to work with people, and this happens in other countries, as well.

American medical students going to Cuba on scholarships to study, a program which started several years ago, are expected to return to poor areas in the States and work for an agreed period of time in clinics, with poor people, as well:

(snip) Medical School in Cuba Reaches Out to Minorities


About 60 Americans are enrolled in Castro's free 6-year program, but they face uncertain prospects

The Chicago Tribune
January 16, 2003
Gary Marx

HAVANA--Two years ago, Cuban President Fidel Castro electrified a New York City audience when he announced that Cuba would provide free medical training to hundreds of low-income Americans.
Today, nearly 60 Americans are studying medicine along with several thousand other foreign students at the Latin American School of Medical Sciences, a sprawling former naval academy on the outskirts of Havana.

The American students are from New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and a dozen other states. Most are African-American and Latino. Some are poor, others middle-class.

There are graduates from elite universities who were drawn by Cuba's culture and politics. There are others who didn't finish college. Some students said they couldn't resist the idea of becoming a doctor without spending a dime.

"I can't say that I came here only to make a political statement," said Rachel Hardeman, 23, a Minneapolis resident and graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana. "My main goal is to become a doctor, an excellent doctor."

A chemistry major and Spanish language minor in college, Hardeman said she was preparing to apply to U.S. medical schools when her mother sent her an article about Castro's scholarship offer. Hardeman decided in early August. Three weeks later she was in Cuba.

"I never dreamed I'd end up here," she said. "But I was sympathetic to Cuba and always wanted to study in a Spanish-speaking country."

Training doctors for free--even in Cuba--seems like an offer so generous that any criticism appears petty and unwarranted. The students have all pledged to return to the United States upon graduation to work in needy communities. (snip)

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/cuba/uscuba/539.html

You've probably already heard about this, but it's really good to get out REAL information, isn't it?

[DuctapeFatwa]

25. If they can stick it out, their future may be uncertain in the US but

they will have other countries lining up to get them.

Even for poor kids in the US, life in Cuba will be a big change, I'm not surprised so many of them can't stick it out. Not being able to communicate with your family is pretty hard, and if nothing else, these kids will be more understanding of what it can be like to live in the US as an immigrant from a country the US doesn't like.

Medicine as a service, not a commodity.

VIVA La Revolucion!

[Just Me]

32. "Medicine as a service, not a commodity",...

,...sums it up pretty damned good for me. Let's get even more chiseled,..."healthcare" is presently treated as a profit-generating commodity dependent upon a high demand by humans who MUST consume "healthcare". One step further, humans are now mere commodities to feed the profit-stanced industry of "healthcare". Hmpf,...snake eating its tail kind of thing,...almost like, perhaps exactly as cannibalistic capitalism sort of picture, huh.

[9215]

36. "Left winger Chavez"????

How about replacing that with popularly elected President Chavez unlike our Right-Winger in Thief.