Doctors in Venezuela have staged mass protests, demanding the expulsion of Cuban medics, whom they say are political agents and do not hold proper medical qualifications.
Hundreds of doctors, dressed in white gowns, marched though the streets of the capital Caracas. They complained that many Venezuelan doctors were driven out of their jobs due to the influx of Cuban medics.
While President Chavez’s government-equipped Cuban-staffed clinics have medicines and modern machines, public hospitals lacked basic medical equipment.
“They’re equipping these centres and yet the big public hospitals don’t have surgical gloves, gauze or X-ray plates,” said radiologist Maria Falcon, reported Reuters.
The Cuban presence in Venezuela has increased since the “doctors-for-oil” programme began two years ago. The scheme, run by President Chavez, has attracted thousands of Cuban staff. In exchange the oil-rich country sends Cuba 90,000 barrels of oil a day.
Under the special programme Cuban doctors, dentists and nurses work in newly set-up medical centres in Venezuela’s poorest areas. Chavez says most Venezuelan health professionals refuse to work in the poor, crime-ridden slums that surround Caracas and other cities.
However, local health professionals claimed that the Cuban doctors are not properly qualified and have been brought in to preach Chavez’s and Castro’s communist-socialist propaganda.
“These Cubans are political agents who come to indoctrinate, not to work as doctors,” said trauma specialist Pedro Carvallo, reported Reuters.
Venezuela has been a close ally of Fidel Castro’s communist-run Cuba. The former US Assistant Secretary of State, Otto Reich, has called it Cuba’s “colony”, “branch office” or “subsidiary”.
“It is clear that Chávez has put many of his country’s assets at Fidel Castro’s disposition. This is the case of Venezuela’s oil,” said Reich in an interview with Venezuela’s El Universsal.
Despite the angry protests, the Government is planning to set up 600 new diagnosis and treatment centres staffed by Cubans and equipped with modern imported machinery this year.
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