i guess that cuba is such a paradise that they don't need them there... right???
Posted on 07/15/2005 4:02:18 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
CARACAS, Venezuela, July 15 (Reuters) - Several hundred Venezuelan doctors and hospital workers staged a protest on Friday against the presence of thousands of Cuban doctors employed by the government whom they said were stealing their jobs.
Wearing white medical gowns and waving national flags, the protesters accused President Hugo Chavez of using oil revenues to pay for more than 20,000 doctors and dentists from Cuba who are providing free health services for Venezuela's poor.
They complained that many Venezuelan doctors could not find jobs and that while Chavez's government equipped Cuban-staffed clinics with medicines and modern machines, public hospitals lacked basic medical equipment.
"The so-called Cuban doctors earn more than Venezuelans. Out with the intruders," read a banner carried by the demonstrators.
"Venezuelan doctors are underpaid and a lot are unemployed," trauma specialist Pedro Carvallo said. The protesters said the Cubans received hard currency salaries paid by Venezuela, which also ships oil to communist-ruled Cuba.
The Cubans work in Venezuela's poor city neighborhoods and rural areas under a program agreed by left-winger Chavez with his ally Cuban President Fidel Castro.
The 2-year-old health program, called Barrio Adentro which means "Into the Neighborhood" in Spanish, is very popular among poor supporters of Chavez and helped him win a national referendum on his rule last year.
Local health professionals grouped in the Venezuelan Medical Federation say the Cuban doctors are not properly qualified and have been brought in to preach Chavez and Castro's socialist message.
"These Cubans are political agents who come to indoctrinate, not to work as doctors," said Carvallo.
"The Cubans can come, as long as they don't take our jobs," said another protester, Ingrid Zurita, a biological analyst.
Chavez says most Venezuelan health professionals refuse to work in the poor, crime-ridden slums that surround Caracas and other cities.
The government is setting up 600 new diagnosis and treatment centers staffed by Cubans and equipped with modern imported machinery this year.
"They're equipping these centers and yet the big public hospitals don't have surgical gloves, gauze or X-ray plates," said another protester, radiologist Maria Falcon.
Anyone figure that Chavez intends to make Venezuela a Commie satellite of Cuba?
Dern tootin'! Those Venezuelan Docs recognize the threat!
We've got jobs for them in the US.
We should stop him.
i guess that cuba is such a paradise that they don't need them there... right???
Viva Castro! Viva la Revolution!
Castro needs the $$$$...follow the money.
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