The Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) denied this Saturday rumors about the existence of new regulations for the exit of the country of the workers of the sector, who can travel abroad for private matters.
“There is no immigration regulation for doctors specializing in Comprehensive General Medicine, or recently graduated doctors, the immigration policy approved in 2015 is maintained, it is not the policy of the health sector to add new regulations,” the agency’s note states.
According to the MINSAP, since 2015 Resolution No. 994 has been in force, which establishes the “internal procedure to apply by the administration of the units of the National Health System, to workers who are subject to the regulations of the Decree 306 of October 11, 2012.
According to said decree, “higher education graduates” and “specialized mid-level technicians who perform vital activities to maintain health services and scientific-technical activity” can be regulated.
In this regard, the official newspaper Granma public in 2015: “specialists and residents in their last year of medical specialties will be regulated to travel abroad for private matters on a temporary or permanent basis, not including those of Comprehensive General Medicine, with exceptions.”
All these personnel must request authorization to travel abroad for personal reasons, which the Cuban authorities have specified is not a prohibition, but a procedure to organize these trips and guarantee health services to the population.
The state media itself clarified that nurses, technologists, stomatologists and psychologists trained in the sector do not fall into this regulated group, nor do those health professionals who have been discharged from the system and do not work in care units.
These provisions do not regulate the entry and exit of the country of health professionals who emigrated legally (tourism, personal reasons or employment contracts) and reside abroad.
The Cuban authorities have not confirmed or denied the punishment of eight years without being able to enter the Island applied to those professionals in the sector who abandoned medical missions.
