Juan Juan Almeida, 29 August 2017 — The crisis in Venezuela has generated the mobilization of a greater number of Cuban “collaborators” in the healthcare sector than ever recorded in history, some of them committed to participate in the military exercises called by president Nicolas Maduro.
While president Nicolas Maduro stirs up the internal forces with military skirmishes against the threats of the United States and blocks the signals of two emblematic television stations, Venezuela is receiving with particular discretion an unprecendented number of Cuban health workers, which includes both doctors and other professionals in this sector, according to reports obtained by Martí Noticias.
Starting at 7 in the morning on 17 August and continuing until today, the Central Unit of Medical Cooperation (UCCM), in Havana, has managed to accelerate the travel of an army of white coats, ready to perform their labors in Venezuela.
Currently, there are some 28,000 health professionals in Venezuela, but the number could be quickly augmented in the coming days.
In less than 15 days they have processed more than 2,000 Cuban health workers, among them nurses, intensive care and medical emergency physicians that come from the health system of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR). An act that, for some, seems to be the underside of humanitarian aid.
The collaborators come from all provinces of the country, although the processing center is in Havana.
“Whether from the FAR or not, the Cuban health workers that the UCCM has sent to Venezuela are not a political party and do not occupy leadership positions in any of the spheres of Venezuelan sociopolitical life,” according to a source in the Cuban medical sector.
The informant said they all go as doctors, nurses or health-related people, “willing to provide excellent medical care and care for patients with the same respect and love they learned in school.”
“Guns kill, medicine opens a path that has no going back,” the source added.
However, it is striking that according to a document distributed from 21 August, doctors from the FAR were cited, as a matter of obligation, and as subordinates, to form part of the Bolivarian Sovereignty military exercise that began in Macarao, on 26 August.
In a context like that of Venezuela today, no one can camouflage themselves under a profession that holds an important space in the life of Venezuela.
“In the UCCM we have the responsibility to guarantee the fulfillment of the commitments made by the Cuban government in the field of international medical collaboration. For this reason, the fact that Cuban doctors, processed by UCCM, are part of this or any other military exercise, constitutes a flagrant violation of the peace and medical cooperation agreement — to strengthen the historic bond of friendship between both peoples, and to work In order to promote and promote the economic and social progress of the two countries with the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean — which was signed on 30 October 2000 in Caracas by Cuban Commander in Chief Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías,” the informant said.
