The group is part of the 428 scholarship recipients who have been on the Island since 2021.
14ymedio, Ángel Salinas, Mexico City, July 7, 2025 — A group of 25 Mexicans completed their specialty in surgery last June at the Cuban Institute of Ophthalmology (ICO) Ramón Pando Ferrer, in Havana. The students are part of the 428 who arrived in Cuba through the scholarships that have been reactivated since 2021 by the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies of Mexico (CONAHCYT). According to one source, “Mexico spent 937,500 euros ($1,098,958) on their education.”
The Mexican students are enrolled in the 2022-2025 generation, and their return to Mexico is planned, but “there is still no date for their possible incorporation into the IMSS Bienestar health system,” confirmed the health official, who requested anonymity.
The same source acknowledged that “every investment in education is beneficial, but sending students to Cuba is more expensive than sending them to the United States, Spain or Germany.” According to the database of post-graduate scholarship recipients, a student with a scholarship in the United States costs Mexico $20,970 per year, $7,000 less than in Cuba.
“I can confirm some expenses for this group, including the payment to the Cuban Medical Services Commercialization Agency of $14,648 per year for each student. In addition to $1,277 for the CONAHCYT scholarship, there is an additional one-time payment of $1,758 to prevent desertions,” said the official.
The students are part of the 428 who arrived in Cuba through scholarships that have been reactivated since 2021 by the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies of Mexico
It is cheaper for Mexico to send students abroad to the Netherlands, where the annual investment is $20,389; to Spain, $18,666; to Canada, $18,415; to Germany, $17,379; to in France, $689 dollars.
Between 2021 and 2023, the same source recalled, CONAHCYT awarded scholarships to Mexican students to study their specialty at the University of Medical Sciences in Havana, the Ministry of Public Health and the Center for Medical Surgical Research.
Despite the failure and controversy that was generated in its first edition in 2021, Mexico has maintained the CONAHCYT scholarship program to study one of the 13 medical specialties in Cuba.
According to the tab shown in euros in the call itself, the prices are: pathology, 7,800 euros; general surgery, 12,500; hygiene and epidemiology, 7,800; medical genetics, 12,500; geriatrics, 7,800; rehabilitation medicine, 9,900; intensive care medicine, 12,500; internal medicine, 9,900; pulmonology, 7,800; ophthalmology, 12,500; clinical pathology, 9,900; psychiatry, 9,900; and traumatology and orthopaedics, 12,500 euros.
The information was reported shortly after seven Cuban doctors were celebrated in Campeche for a year of providing services at the Imss hospital in Escárcega: Ángel Rondon, Jackeline Naranjo, Gricelia Elias, Isabel Toranzo, Jaqueline Baquero, Juan Alberto Tamayo and Joel Solórzano.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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