MADRID, Spain.- US congressmen María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez and Mark Green sent a letter to Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), demanding explanations about the role of the organization in the “missions Cuban doctors” sent to Brazil between 2013 and 2018.
In the document, the congressmen accused Barbosa and PAHO of obstructing the investigations, by preventing the full disclosure of their conduct, since they have not delivered any report to the State Department, members of Congress, or lawyers representing Cuban doctors. on the trafficking of Cuban doctors.
In the letter, reviewed by Radio Television Martí, Congressmen question: “Are U.S. taxpayer funds being used to pay lawyers who deny the government basic information about PAHO’s actions, and to deny doctors their day in court?”, noting that PAHO , based in Washington, DC, “receives tens of millions of dollars from US taxpayers each year.”
He also recalled that the dictatorship of Miguel Díaz-Canel charges billions for the work of doctors abroad, which has been denounced on numerous occasions as labor exploitation.
The demand against PAHO began by four Cuban doctors in 2018, in Florida, and was transferred to DC in 2020
These doctors, residents of the United States, denounced PAHO for its mediation between the Governments of Cuba and Brazil in the Mais Médicos program and for benefiting from the forced labor of health professionals from the Island in Brazil.
As part of the Mais Médicos program, the Cuban regime agreed in 2012 to send specialists from the Health sector to Brazil. According to the lawsuit, the two countries used PAHO as an intermediary to avoid a direct agreement between the two parties.
Thanks to Mais Médicos, the Havana regime received 85% of the money paid by Brazil to the doctors, who only got 10% of their salary. Meanwhile, the remaining 5% was withheld by PAHO as a fee, according to a report from Reuters.
