14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2022 — Mexico gave 34,000,000 Mexican pesos (1,501,766 dollars) to Cuba, according to a report released by Latinus. The money was transferred in 2021 through the National Council for Science and Technology (Conacyt) to Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, SA, “a company of the Government of Havana accused internationally of human trafficking and forced labor.”
The Cuban company, created in 2011, it is pointed out in the report, exploits various lines of business that range from sending personnel to international medical missions “paid” by the requesting countries, to treatments offered in Cuba under the concept of health tourism.
“In the last three years, Conacyt has cut scholarships, funding for research and budgets for education centers in Mexico” and has allocated these resources to the “Government of Díaz-Canel.” The report states that part of the money received was for the scholarships for Mexican medical students who are studying a specialty on the island.
The scholarships to Mexican medical students to complete their training in Cuba in 2021 was one of the businesses highlighted. Although this year only 172 scholarships out of the 1,600 planned finally materialized, the matter unleashed a controversy that continues in Mexico.
If the coverage of 1,600 scholarships had materialized, the Government of Cuba would have received a total of 40 million dollars as “tuition” for this program. Contacted by 14ymedio, Alejandra Reynoso Sánchez, a senator from the Mexican opposition National Action Party, stated that “the government is using the Conacyt scholarships to finance the Cuban regime.”
Despite the failure and controversy generated in its first edition, this year Mexico maintained the Conacyt scholarship program to study one of the 13 medical specialties on the island.
What the Cuban Government will receive for each student and specialty, according to the table that appears in euros in the agreement itself, is much more: pathological anatomy, 7,800 euros; general surgery, 12,500; hygiene and epidemiology, 7,800; medical genetics, 12,500; geriatrics, 7,800; rehabilitation medicine, 9,900; intensive medicine, 12,500; internal medicine, 9,900; pulmonology, 7,800; ophthalmology, 12,500; clinical pathology, 9,900; psychiatry, 9,900, and traumatology and orthopedics, 12,500.
The doctors on scholarship, who will receive support of 1,090 euros per month, must cover the cost of medical insurance that ranges from 231 to 753 euros and will be paid “directly.” In addition, students will have to pay 150 dollars for PCR tests and isolation periods.
Before these cases, 14ymedio published various reports about the shady deals between Cuba and the Government of Mexico City for the sending of medical missions from the Island. In July 2020, “the largest deposit was made for these services, corresponding to 135,837,000 pesos to the Marketing Company of Cuban Medical Services, SA.”
The money was transferred to the Cuban regime through HSBC account 4062724620 opened by Banobras, which was canceled in August 2020.
In September 2021, the coordinator in the Mexican Senate of the opposition National Action Party (PAN), Julen Rementería, denounced that high-ranking authorities in Mexico and Cuba “orchestrated a fraud” of 255,873,177 pesos (about 12,692,940 million dollars).” The legislator demonstrated that this was what Before these cases, 14ymedio published several reports about the shady deals between Cuba and the Government of Mexico City for the sending of medical missions from the Island.
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