Cuba's Doctor Abuse

Investors.com ^ | February 25, 2010 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff

[Kaslin]

Health Care: Remember Cuba's vaunted medical missionaries — those who treated the poor abroad for nothing, supposedly out of selfless motives? A lawsuit shows they were nothing but a communist slave racket.

It ought to bear a few lessons for our own country as the role of doctors in the health care debate drags on.

Back in 1963, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro launched a much-praised initiative to share Cuba's medical doctors with the poor around the world. The idea, of course, was to appear to be acting on higher motives than the profit-driven doctors in free societies. It was small scale and propaganda-oriented.

But in 2003, Castro went big, and shipped 20,000 doctors and nurses to Venezuela's jungles and slums to treat the poor, doing the work "selfish" private-sector doctors wouldn't. Hugo Chavez touted this line and the mainstream media followed.

Now the ugly facts are getting out about what that really meant: indentured servitude to pay off the debts of a bankrupt regime.

This week, seven escaped doctors and a nurse filed a 139-page complaint in Miami under the RICO and Alien Tort acts describing just how Cuba's oil-for-doctors deal came to mean slavery.

The Cuban medics were forced to work seven days a week, under 60-patient daily quotas, in crime-riddled places with no freedom of movement. Cuban military guards known as "Committees of Health" acted as slave catchers to ensure they didn't flee.

Doctors earned about $180 a month, a salary so low many had to beg for food and water from Venezuelans until they could escape.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

I’m sure the intellectual academics will mention all this at universities and colleges when teaching about the workers paradise of Cuba. Sure they will.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

"The Cuban medics were forced to work seven days a week, under 60-patient daily quotas, in crime-riddled places with no freedom of movement. Cuban military guards known as "Committees of Health" acted as slave catchers to ensure they didn't flee.

Doctors earned about $180 a month, a salary so low many had to beg for food and water from Venezuelans until they could escape."

Did Michael Moore mention this in his movie?

[Kaslin]

I doubt it

[Beowulf9]

Speaking of revelations about doctors why is it our own countries hospitals are hiring vast numbers of doctors from Muslim countries, that are themselves Muslims?

[Bean Counter]

[RU88]

Castro is taking Chavez to the cleaners. What’s that about honor among thieves?

[oyez]

What’s that about honor among thieves?

That applies to thieves. Commies have no honor.

[revo evom]

Do you ever ask yourself how is it we have such a penchant and talent for self destruction, yet we still are here?

We know so much about so many things, yet we continue to embrace the same political insanity responsible for so much suffering. Why? To what end?

We have evolved free will, self determination based solutions to all the problems we historically have confronted, that harmonize with our nature and the laws of the natural world, yet so many choose darker paths of self indentured servants to a all powerful oz.

We see over and over again what does not work and yet we must continually fight against those who would repeat those same societal failures again and again. Why???

[4Liberty]

[Grizzled Bear]

But it’s free...

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

I've gotta think these Muslim "doctors" are poorly trained. Med school in the Mideast probably starts, and ends, with how to cut off an infidels head with a rusty implement.

I wouldn't trust one to so much as sew up a cut, or make a routine diagnosis.

The USA attracts many Sikh doctors to its shores. Sikhs are clean, honorable, and have traditionally made the healing arts their specialty. My brother had an excellent Sikh doctor, after others docs told him his broken arm would never heal properly. It did, and the Sikh was so generous as to answer all questions about his religion, even to the point of letting my brother examine his Kirpan (a 13-inch sword) which has nearly sacred significance to the Sikhs. The Kirpan was adopted by the Sikh army (Khalsa Panth) to fight ravaging Muslim armies.

[Bigg Red]

I think the answer to your question is that evil pops up over and over again and must be conquered yet again.

[Kozak]

And worth the price....

[FormerACLUmember]

The Cuban medics were forced to work seven days a week, under 60-patient daily quotas, in crime-riddled places with no freedom of movement. Cuban military guards known as "Committees of Health" acted as slave catchers to ensure they didn't flee. Doctors earned about $180 a month, a salary so low many had to beg for food and water from Venezuelans until they could escape.

I did the math. The Cuban Slaves got 10 cents a patient. The Castro Family got paid $30.00 per patient session plus oil.

Another way to put it: The doctors got $180 for 1800 patient contacts a month, while the communist masters got paid $54,000 per month for their slave work.

[paristwelve]

I know why. Here in Europe a good half of graduating doctors are women who after graduation realize that they don’t much like doctoring, they don’t like the hours, the patients, the routine and they don’t pursue specializations. They don’t like the grunt work so to speak. So, medical practitioners are brought in from North Africa to do the heavy lifting while Madame works part time in industry or administration.