Government Panamanian delivered this Tuesday to Cuba a plaque in recognition of the support provided by the island specialists “during the most difficult moments of the pandemic.”
Some 230 Cuban doctors were in Panama for months to strengthen the country’s health system amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The medical mission arrived in December 2020 and the last group of 99 specialists left the country in August 2021, according to available official information.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Panama??, Janaina Tewaney, received the ambassador of #Cuba?? Lydia Margarita González, who concludes her mission in the isthmus nation.
?https://t.co/gL39hsRiW5 pic.twitter.com/pJaOTjFyOw
— Cuban Foreign Ministry (@CubaMINREX) November 19, 2022
“The important thing is the relationship that has been maintained over time between Panama and Cuba, a people that has always behaved like a brother people,” said the head of the Panamanian Ministry of Health, Luis Francisco Sucre, during the delivery of the plaque of recognition to the ambassador of Cuba, Lydia Margarita González.
According to a statement from the Health portfolio, which cites efe, Sucre affirmed “that the times that the country has needed the support of the Cuban government they have always found it.” “The President of the Republic (Laurentino Cortizo) sends a warm greeting and the deepest gratitude to the Government of Cuba,” he added.
Ambassador González indicated, for her part, “that the four-year diplomatic mission carried out in Panama is close to concluding and that the rapprochement of both Ministries of Health in times when COVID-19 was out of control has been a pleasure.”
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The arrival of the Cuban personnel at the time generated the annoyance of the local medical unions, since medicine is one of the dozens of professions and trades that by law can only be practiced by Panamanian citizens. The payment for the services of the Cuban medical specialists, which was made to the Government of the island and not to the professionals, also brought controversy, according to what the Panamanian government adviser Francisco Sánchez Cárdenas stated in an interview.
The hiring of the Cubans was based on a bilateral agreement that provided for the arrival of 10 medical teams for a period of three renewable months, with a monthly cost of $591,197, according to an official resolution disseminated by local media and cited by the Spanish news agency. .
Efe/OnCuba.
