If Cuban healthcare is so good
Why are so many Cuban medical professionals defecting?
Perhaps they don't like being treated like chattel:
Rarely are defections made public. Embassies in Latin America that receive requests keep quiet to protect the asylum-seekers and not fuel the indignation of the host government. Still, details seep out -- such as an internal U.N. report in 2003 that said 100 Cubans were trying to seek asylum at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas.
"It's common, but no one ever sees it or knows about it," said Nora Garcia, 46, an orthodontist who is among those who defected to Bogota. "You don't talk about desertions."
Yovany Ciero, 29, a sports trainer who is among those who defected to Colombia, said he planned to abandon his post from the moment he was told he was going to Venezuela.
In Tachira state, on the border with Colombia, he lived in a house with seven other Cubans, working 10 hours a day, seven days a week, he said. "I felt like merchandise, to be exchanged for petroleum," he said.
Venezuela's dictator, Hugo Chavez, supplies oil to Cuba at heavily-subsidized prices. In return, Chavez gets Cuba's main export: doctors. These doctors are then assigned to poor neighborhoods to provide 24/7 medical care for residents. But the doctors themselves complain about harsh conditions: long days, high crime, high expenses, and no liberty -- they have to apply to Venezuelan and Cuban authorities for permission to leave their assigned areas, cannot talk to any foreign journalists, and they're watched by the security services. It's not surprising, then, that over 500 worldwide have applied for asylum in the US.
LINKS: Captain Ed has more, including a report on a tourist-family's nightmare vacation in Cuba.
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