GOB Working to Retain Cuban Medical Personnel Amid US Pressure

Prime Minister John Briceño says his government is actively seeking alternative sources of medical personnel while simultaneously working to preserve some form of arrangement with Cuba’s medical brigade, as American pressure threatens the future of the programme in Belize.

Speaking on Open Your Eyes this morning, Briceño said the Ministry of Health is already looking to recruit nurses from the Philippines, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua to fill any gap that may result from the departure of Cuban medical personnel.

“They are already actively looking to get nurses, as far as the Philippines and El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, both nurses and doctors,” he said.

Briceño added that his government is trying to find an arrangement with the Cuban government that would allow brigade members who wish to remain in Belize to do so on terms acceptable to the United States, which has characterised such medical missions as a form of human trafficking.

“We’re trying to be able to address that so that the Americans say, ‘Okay, well, they’re here working on their own free will,'” he said, adding that Belize has from the outset paid doctors directly rather than through the Cuban state.

“I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to work on that,” Briceño said. “I’m a very optimistic person.”