More Cuban doctors, not less, in the struggle against COVID-19

Dear editor,

The Jamaica Cuba Friendship Association condemns in the strongest way the vile attempt by the Donald Trump Administration in the US to use the 118-year-old Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in a partisan way, as part of its efforts aimed at securing his re-election on November 3, 2020, and is urging the rest of the 35 member states and supportive institutions to resist this move that is bound to compromise the integrity and place this august body in disrepute.

The target of Trump’s floundering election campaign is the Mais Medicos (More Doctors) programme, which at its peak had over 11,000 Cuban health professionals serving some targeted 63 million people in historically underserved communities in 4,000 municipalities, the vast majority located in poor and remote areas. This was launched by the Government of

Brazil in 2013, with the support of both PAHO and the World Health Organization (WHO).

In Jamaica we say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and no amount of lies and misinformation from the mouthpieces of US imperialism can erase the truth of the Brazilian people’s life-changing experiences with our Cuban brothers and sisters in that period of human interaction. Between 2013 and 2018 Cuban collaborators treated more than 113,559,000 patients across the country. Additionally, within the same period, 1,214 students graduated from medical schools.

The disgraceful and discredited attempts by the satraps of the current US Administration to paint a vulgar picture of the internationalism and solidarity of the Cuba medical assistance in this time of the dreaded COVID- 19 did not square with the reality of peoples of the world, especially those benefiting from the work of the 3,700 health professionals that make up the 46 health brigades in 39 countries across the world.

As a matter of fact, the direct opposite occurred, where a growing international campaign has placed Cuba’s Henry Reeves Brigade in pole position as a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize as it writes another glorious chapter in the defence of humanity and the Cuban Revolution.

We would strongly advise the current occupant of the White House that courting the anti-cuba community vote in Florida by dragging the world’s oldest public health agency (PAHO) into his campaign cannot stop the living example which Cuba provides that another world is possible, which trumps crass materialism, which COVID-19 so brutally exposed in the USA.

Trevor G Brown President Jamaica Cuba Friendship Association scribe.brown@gmail.com