The unfolding rental of nearly 500 Cuban doctors by the regional government of Calabria in southern Italy has already been mentioned on this blog here and here. As with the story of Portugal’s recent rental of a smaller number of Cuban medics, Miami’s Herald papers have run no coverage of the Calabria deal, so I decided to look further into the matter myself (which is starting to get old, since that’s not my job, but I suppose somebody has to do it).
Calabria is Italy’s poorest region, which encourages people to leave it rather than go there to live and work. It is right next door to Sicily, and its chronic problems include significant mafia activity, which has wormed its way into the health care sector to suck money from it, obviously illicitly. This has aggravated an already dysfunctional medical system, making it even more unattractive, which has led to the closing of 18 hospitals over the last decade and the threat of more such closures. Thus, it is a perfect setup for Cuba to step in as a service provider, naturally for a price.
The key Italian in the business is Calabria’s president, Roberto Occhiuto, who kept negotiations secret until he had a done deal. Like his counterpart in Portugal, he is not a Socialist but considered center-right. He says Calabria’s health system is collapsing and that this is not a structural solution but an emergency measure (for 3 years). He insists Cuban medics are not taking work away from Italian ones and that they will not be paid more than Italians. It clearly appears this is a matter of expediency. Occhiuto puts it as if he has no better option and stresses helping his own people, while predictably sidestepping Cuba’s exploitative labor practices, let alone the enabling of Cuba’s dictatorship (to the tune of 28 million euros per year, an estimated 80% of which will go to the Cuban state, not the doctors).
So, here we are, again. Occhiuto, like the typical politician faced with a bad situation, seems to want the easiest and quickest possible fix (or the appearance thereof) before he gets voted out in favor of someone who promises better. Cuba, of course, is not his problem or concern. He can just keep pushing the humanitarian angle and, if pressed, claim he has to do what he’s doing. To be fair, he’s got a better excuse than all those foreigners who choose to vacation in Cuba without any need or pressure whatsoever to do so and with many better alternatives. But yes, he’s not only indifferent to Cuba’s tragedy (which would be fair enough) but contributing to its perpetuation. And so it goes.
But think about it: How can a notoriously malfunctional third-world country like Cuba, whose own health care system is a cratering mess, be producing mass quantities of doctors for export? Because. It. Pays–not just in material terms, but (for those who like pretty lies) in terms of image. Cuba’s dictatorship is firmly focused on staying in power, which costs money, and it’s prepared to get it any way it can. Medical “missions” abroad are big business, and even though they amount to a kind of slavery, all the Cuban regime needs is paying customers who look the other way.