The United States canceled, on Friday (15), the visas of his wife and 10-year-old daughter of Health Minister Alexandre Padilha. The minister himself has been overcome since 2024, so he is not subject to cancellation.
This week, the United States State Department revoked the visas of employees of the Brazilian government linked to the implementation of the Mais Médicos program. The visas of Mozart Julio Tabosa Sales, Specialized Secretary of Health Care of the Ministry of Health, and Alberto Kleiman, former advisor to International Relations of the portfolio and current general coordinator for 30th United Nations Conference on Climate Change 2025 (COP30).
In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justifies that the servers would have contributed to a “forced labor export scheme of the Cuban regime” through Mais Médicos.
Padilha was also Minister of Health when Mais Médicos was created in the government of former President Dilma Rousseff in 2013. The program serves remote regions with scarcity of these professionals. From 2013 to 2018, Cuban doctors participated in the program through cooperation with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
After the sanction to Brazilian employees, Padilha defended the program which, according to him, “will survive the unjustifiable attacks of anyone.”
Export of Doctors
The US has imposed, for over 60 years, a hard economic blockade to the Caribbean island In order to change the country’s political regime, established after the 1959 Revolution. Since the export of doctors is one of the main ways of Cuba getting resources against the blockade, Donald Trump’s government has tried, since the beginning of its second term, to embarrass countries that receive Cuban professionals.
The Cuban Cooperation Program has existed since the 1960s. Throughout history, 605,000 Cuban doctors have acted in 165 nations. Countries such as Portugal, Ukraine, Russia and Spain, Algeria and Chile have already received doctors from the island, according to data from the Ministry of Health of Cuba.
In Brazil, during the government of Jair Bolsonaro, Mais Médicos changed his name – for doctors in Brazil – and the agreement with PAHO was closed. In 2013, the program was reformulated and expanded by the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, renamed as more doctors, with priority for Brazilian professionals and opening vacancies for other areas of health, such as dentists, nurses and social workers.
