Faced with a lack of staff in one of its hospitals, a local government in Northern Ireland (United Kingdom) is requesting doctors from Cuba. As reported by the BBC on Thursday on your news websitethe authorities of the county fermanagh have sent a letter to the Island’s Embassy in London asking if the Henry Reeve Brigade “could provide assistance” to South West Acute Hospital, in Enniskillen, “so that it can meet the required staffing standards.”
The center had suspended its general surgery service in the emergency room last November due to a lack of toilets.
As is the case throughout the United Kingdom with its National Health Service, the management of the hospital budget and the recruitment of personnel are carried out by trusts or trusts, distributed throughout the country. In this case, the party responsible is the Western Trust.
On March 15, the county’s policy and resources committee extended an invitation to this trust to accept the proposal, but whether or not it has responded is not reported by local media.
The middle Fermanagh Herald mentions that the problems of this trust “to recruit and retain medical personnel” at that hospital have caused a crisis, which local councilors are trying to remedy by importing Cuban toilets.
The diplomatic headquarters responded to the politicians immediately, indicating that the request for medical personnel had been transferred to the Cuban Ministry of Public Health. In a letter signed by Marta Castillo, in charge of cooperation matters at the Embassy, they ask for as many details as possible about the personnel and the specialties required by the city council, and she also suggested holding a video call with the councilors in this regard.
“Cuba, a country living under heavy US economic sanctions, is able and willing to send medical support to us, the poor people of Fermanagh”
Not all members of the Fermanagh corporation, however, are very happy with the hiring of Cubans. The most enthusiastic is the independent councilor Eamon Keenan (from the left, judging by his social networks), responsible for the initiative, who declared that he “never had any doubt” that the Cuban doctors would take the county’s request seriously and alleged that the Western Trust itself had expressed a willingness to recruit “internationally”, so this was “a great opportunity”.
“Cuba, a country living under heavy US economic sanctions, is able and willing to send medical support to us, the poor people of Fermanagh,” Keenan said.
Councilor Victor Warrington (of the Unionist Party) was more skeptical, noting that they need “permanent answers to our problems and not adhesive tape”. In addition, he specified that the imported Cubans “would probably be temporary.”
For his part, Donal O’Cofaigh (of the Labor Party), asserted that even if the Cuban doctors were only there for one or two years, their presence could help to “stabilize” the situation until they found “permanent surgeons.”
The Henry Reeve Brigade, defined as an “international contingent of doctors specialized in disaster situations and serious epidemics”, was created by Fidel Castro in 2005, as propaganda after the passage of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Since then, it has intervened in different countries in floods, earthquakes or outbreaks of diseases such as Ebola. During the covid-19 pandemic, she performed in a total of 40 countries, according to data from the Cuban government.
unlike others missions of Havana, boasts of being “solidarity” and has even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. For organizations such as Archivo Cuba, the Henry Reeve is simply an “exportable product” of the military dictatorship and, as it alerted the award committee in Oslo in 2020 in a public letter“forms an intrinsic part of a human trafficking scheme” that violates international law.
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