Havana/Cuban doctors who are mission In Bahamas they receive only between 8% and 16% of what the government of that country to Havana pays for them. This is credited with a report from the organization Cuba filewhich has had an unofficial way to several documents: the agreement between the Ministry of Health Bahamense and the Cuban Medical Services Marketing (CSMC), the contract that the CSMC signs the collaborators, and the services agreement that must be signed with the Bahamas Ministry of Health.
According to that text, while Bahamas pays monthly for professional $ 12,000 or 5,000, depending on his position – first, to a “medical advisor”; The second, to a computer engineer or a specialist in health information – employees receive $ 1,200 or $ 990, respectively. The rest – 83.9% or 91.6%, depending on the category – will stop at the hands of the CSMC, which, recalls File Cuba, is a “100% property of the Cuban state”.
According to the Cuban Foreign Ministry in April of last year, more than 100 workers on the island were in nine islands of the Bahamense archipelago. Of these, Archive Cuba indicates that at least 37 are employed as “Laboratory technicians, X -ray technicians, physiotherapists, nurses and biomedical engineers” at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau and at the Rand Memorial Hospital in Freeport. Another 40, approximately, are teachers who work in the Bahamense public education system, but, he says, it is unknown where the other Cubans would be, about 23.
The bilateral agreement was signed in 2023 and was valid for one year, they point out, but “the date on which it became effective was blank”
The bilateral agreement was signed in 2023 and was valid for one year, they point out, but “the date on which it was made was blank.” The NGO is presumed, “which is in force indefinitely and any of the parties can end up notifying it three months in advance.”
That document, the report indicates, “shows the forced labor scheme, since it ratifies the discretion of the CMSC on any infraction to the discipline by the workers, prohibits their hiring outside the agreement, it requires confidentiality up to two years after the agreement expired and establishes high payments for the Cuban partner, the CSMC”.
In an annex the planned payments by Bahamas are reflected. On the one hand, $ 12,000 per month for two “medical specialist advisors” (not doctors in medicine, requires Cuba Archive), money from which workers only receive “stipend” 1,200. On the other, 5,000 dollars per month for both a computer science engineer and for a health computer science graduate, who receive 990 dollars from stipend.
The so -called “biomedical engineers” of the Medical Brigade, says Cuba Archive, which fulfill “very basic tasks, such as moving beds from hospital patients”, receive the same “compensation package” as computer engineers.
In addition, the payment of a commission of $ 6,000 for each of the medical specialist advisors and 5,000 for each of the other two dedicated to computer science tasks is stipulated, plus a 15% bonus at the end of their services.
Bahamas also covers payments as “incentive” that are not specified, because “the contract only stipulates that the coordinator of the Brigade will be communicated in writing”
“The existence of this bonus was not informed of Cuban workers or appears in their respective contracts with the CSMC and the Bahamas Ministry of Health,” says the NGO. According to the agreement, the annual cost in salaries for the Bahamas government is 183,600 and 86,000, depending on the categories of workers that appear in the annex, all exempt from local taxes.
Cuba Archive performs the calculation: if Havana received the first type of salary ($ 12,000) for 50% of the hundred workers he reported and the second salary (5,000), for the rest, he would be receiving around 11 million dollars a year of the Bahamense government.
Apart from that remuneration, the text continues, Bahamas also covers payments such as “incentive” that are not specified, because “the contract only stipulates that the coordinator of the Brigade will be communicated in writing”, and the following additional benefits per collaborator: 1,000 dollars per month “for their home, round trip trips, medical and dental care, support to locate housing, courses and examination of English, necessary training and administrative expenses For visas, work permits and a medical entrance exam. ”
The organization estimates – “conservatively”, Apostille– those additional costs amount to at least $ 5,000 a year per worker. That is why they conclude: “The cost per worker is exorbitant if compared to that of using native workers or other contracted foreigners independently, especially not being most highly qualified health care workers [y] that do not speak fluid English, which has already given rise to complaints. ”
Bahamas’s agreement with Cuba, denounces File Cuba, “is very unusual and could even be illegal”
The Bahamas agreement with Cuba, denounces Archive Cuba, “is very unusual and could even be illegal”, since the Nassau government has “strict requirements” to give work permits to foreigners and is “forced to prioritize the use of its own citizens.”
Similarly, they point out that the members of the mission Cuban doctor are working without a work permit, “having expired their 90 -day initial permit, which is typically requested before entering the country.”
Cuba Archive also regrets that the Bahamense government, far from denouncing the “systematic human rights violations of the Cuban regime”, puts the Havana regime as a model, even having security agreements, “that cover the training of customs professionals, prison officials and dogs specialized in airport inspections and entrance ports”.
Faced with expressions such as those of the Bahamas ambassador to Havana, Elliston Rahming, who declared “there is a lot of security in Cuba, in addition to peace and harmony, something that the Bahamnses like” and condemned the inclusion of the island in the list of sponsoring countries of terrorism, Archive Cuba recalls the case of the death of four sailors Bahamenses in 1980 at the hands of the Cuban Air Force.
“The bodies of Fenrick Sturrup, Austin Smith, David Tucker and Edward Williams were never found after Fidel Castro ordered two Cuban mig Lobster, Moro and Caracol crab in Bahamenses waters ”, reads in the report.
The organization itself requested in October 2023 to Michael Darville, Minister of Health of Bahamas, copies of the agreements signed with Cuba, as well as details about the payments and expenses related to the toilets of the island, but never received an answer.
“It goes against our laws and we are a country of law. We do not believe we have done it; we are not doing it, but we will review our situation”
The official did respond, however, To the local presswhich echoes the Cuba file report this Tuesday. Darville questioned the “authenticity of some documents” and said that the figures, which indicate that workers perceive only a small fraction of what they pay to the Cuban regime for them, “seem distorted.” He will compare the documents leaked with the agreements he signed, he assured The Tribuneto determine its accuracy.
Last March, Prime Minister Bahamense, Philip Davis, defended himself from the accusations by the United States over the MISSIONS Medical, ensuring that the laws and constitution of the country prohibit the involvement in human trafficking and that their government “will never incur forced labor.”
“It goes against our laws and we are a country of law. We do not believe we have done it; we are not doing it, but we will review our situation,” Davis said in those days, when different leaders of the Caribbean community (Caricom), to which Bahamas belongs.
At the end of February, the United States announced that it would not give visas to Cubans or foreigners who were involved in the export of labor of the islandespecially doctors, something that has been denouncing numerous international organizations such as Human Rights Watch or Prisoners Defenders. This reacted not only the Cuban regime, qualifying the decision of “coercion” and arguing that it was taken based on “falsehoods”, but also foreign governments.
The president of Caricom and Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, even sentenced that she was “prepared”, like other leaders of the region, to lose her US visa if a “sensible agreement” on the matter was not achieved, because “the principles matter.”
