“They were thrown away, mainly paracetamol and diclofenac, to claim they were being given to patients,” a specialist told Cuba Archive.
14ymedio, Madrid, August 7, 2025 — “Patients had to be invented in order to justify all the Cubans who were part of the missions and had nothing to do with medicine.” This is what a Cuban doctor tells Cuba Archive about his experience of several years in the medical brigades sent to Bolivia by Havana during the time of the government of Evo Morales.
A doctor from the same mission confirms to 14ymedio the testimony of the specialist quoted by the organization based in the United States, and adds: “They had private cooks, custodians, drivers, laundry services, maintenance, housekeepers, counselors, maids, secretaries and support staff: all were Cubans and served as doctors.”
The doctor interviewed by Cuba Archive denounces the misuse of medicines to pretend that more patients were being treated than they actually received, in order to make the Bolivian government believe that more specialists were needed. “Surgical procedures were invented to ask for more money and make propaganda: unnecessary operations for abnormal fleshy growths and invented cataracts,” he says.
“Paracetamol and diclofenac were basically thrown away, supposedly given to patients.”
He also mentions that nurses were forced to break insulin syringes, break and burn prescription glasses and dispose of analgesics. “They basically threw paracetamol and diclofenac into the trash and said they were being given to patients,” he says, among other examples.
However, he continues, the majority of those sent were not doctors. “I remember that once in an official activity we were given a pamphlet which said that in Bolivia there were more than 700 ‘Cuban collaborators’ and, of those, fewer than 300 were healthcare personnel. I knew that the minority were doctors. The rest were handpicked. For all of them we had to invent patients and justify the money that Cuba was stealing from Bolivia.”
He also accuses the mission coordinators of living in the “most luxurious places in La Paz” with an entourage of staff: cooks, security, drivers, laundry service and all kinds of employees, who were disguised as doctors, when in reality they were political commissioners.
The doctor personally accuses the then ambassador of Cuba to Bolivia, Benigno Pérez Fernández, of sending “huge wooden crates, more than three feet high” by diplomatic bag while his colleagues were limited to 40 pounds of luggage. “The pilots and flight attendants made fun of us because we traveled with several pants and T-shirts one on top of the other in order to take some things home while the elite could send as much as they wanted,” he says.
Together with the former ambassador -in office until 2019- the doctor mentions other officials and involves the Argentine doctor Fernando Leanes–representative of the Pan American Health Organization–whom he accuses of knowing under what conditions the health workers were working without doing anything. “President Evo Morales and his family were served there, and Evo went a lot. Leanes loved stealing a camera and taking pictures with them. He knew everything, knew perfectly how we lived.”
“In Bolivia, many Cubans left the mission. Ironically, many of them were the same very revolutionary and shameless bosses]]
The doctor, who says he worked at the El Alto Eye Care Center in La Paz and is now abroad, did not leave the brigade for fear of the repercussions it could have on his family. “But in Bolivia many Cubans left the mission. Ironically, many of them were the same very revolutionary and shameless bosses.”
Similarly, he claims that he had difficulties in joining a medical brigade, because in previous years he had obtained a passport with the intention of emigrating to Spain but was refused exit. The authorities were suspicious of him, thinking that he wanted to use his job to leave the island, which is why he was systematically rejected, until an opportunity arrived for him in Bolivia.
The doctor considers that his non-military status in the Communist Party and the Union of Young Communists also played against him and states that its members paid 400 or 600 CUC (Cuban convertible currency, no longer used) to guarantee a “quick exit” from the mission. “I know that missions are bought, and even a cafeteria manager can leave as a medical technician,” he says.
The specialist earned $670, although he had been promised $800, sometimes with arrears of up to four or five months, and claims that he received a reduction of $100 per month, allegedly to pay for rent and basic services to be provided by the Bolivian Government, “so the mission leaders must have been stealing it,” he states. The doctor claims to have seen a “payroll” showing that $4,000 was paid per worker.
“Upon arrival in Bolivia, as soon as we got off the plane, someone from State Security was waiting for us at the bottom of the steps to take our passports. If you had to take another flight, they would give it back with the ticket and take it away again when you arrived at the next destination,” he says. This is consistent with what has been reported by hundreds of brigadistas, and they were forbidden from forming emotional or personal relations with nationals of the country in which they were serving. Visits to other homes were prohibited, and they were told how to respond in possible interviews.
The internationalist mission in Bolivia ended in 2019, when then acting president Jeanine Áñez cancelled the agreement with Havana, claiming that “less than a third were health professionals.”
At that time, 702 doctors left the country, of whom an estimated 205 were qualified. “They had a salary of 1,040, a stipend of 68 bolivianos per day ($9.50), and air transport costs paid by the State, making a total of about 9,000 bolivianos ($1,302) for each of them.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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