Brazil, facing health-care crisis, imports Cuban doctors

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Since the 1960s, Cuba has deployed an army of doctors by the tens of thousands to the world’s most inhospitable corners, from Haiti to Africa’s killing fields to the ultra-violent barrios of Venezuela.

Now, thousands of Cubans are heading to relatively affluent Brazil to shore up a decrepit health-care system that has become a national embarrassment.

Two months after mass protests against the substandard condition of public health and other services, President Dilma Rousseff’s government has signed a deal to bring 4,000 Cubans by the end of the year to serve for three years in forlorn outposts where health officials say Brazilian doctors will not work. Under the contract, Brazil will pay the island’s cash-starved government $4,200 a month per doctor, or $200 million annually.

Source: The Washington Post (link opens in a new window)

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Health Care
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public health