YOSMEL CABREIRA STAYS IN CAPE VERDE BUT IS NOT ALLOWED TO EXERCISE HIS PROFESSION
After completing his 2-year mission in Cape Verde within the framework of medical cooperation between Cuba and Cape Verde, the surgeon decided to stay in Cape Verde but has been unable to practice his profession for more than six months because his registration with the Medical Association was denied. .
Yosmel Cabreira considers that his non-acceptance into the Order is the result of pressure exerted by the Cuban Embassy and asks the government of Cape Verde to help unblock a situation that has so far had no solution in sight.
The Cuban, who lives on the island of Sal where he worked for a month at the regional hospital, claims that he has all his documentation in order - residence permit, official equivalence of his medical course and promise of an employment contract at the hospital in Espargos - but even so, the Medical Association continues to deny him his registration, without which he cannot practice his profession.
Unable to practice medicine, Ismael was unemployed for six months until he found work in the hotel sector on the island of Sal, where he lives with his wife, who is also a doctor, and a four-year-old son.
REGARDED AS A DESERTER
Yosmel says that in Cuba he is already considered a deserter and fugitive and if he returns he will face a sentence of eight years in prison as stipulated in the Cuban Penal Code for professional doctors who do not return to the country after completing their work mission abroad.
The alternative is not to return to Cuba during these 8 years, which is seen by the United Nations itself as a forced way of separating doctors from their families, in addition to violating labor law.
CRITICISM OF THE COOPERATION MODEL
If the export of doctors is a very profitable business for the Cuban government, the same cannot be said for beneficiary countries like Cape Verde which, according to Yosmel Cabreira, spends millions to finance this service, when it could use that money to hire doctors. permanent, thus leaving dependence.
The person who actually pays for the Cuban medical mission in Cape Verde is Luxembourg, but experts in the field consider that the amount in question - which is never revealed - could be more useful if it were used to develop the medical staff itself (as happened in Kenya, for example). .
Furthermore, only 25 percent of this money goes to these Cuban doctors who work abroad, leaving the majority of money in the regime's coffers.
In a statement to TCV, Yosmel hinted that there are other Cuban doctors in Cape Verde in a similar situation and appeals to national authorities to allow them to work in Cape Verde, a “free and democratic country” but with a glaring lack of specialists.
Yosmel Cabreira arrived in Cape Verde in 2020 with a 2-year contract that was then extended until April 2023 and worked as a general surgeon at the Batista de Sousa hospital in Mindelo and in March at the Ramiro Figueira Hospital, on the island of Sal.
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