dr. Manuel Alejandro Rodriguez Martin, 35, never imagined that would be received as a hero in Cuba the return of the last of the three missions of health that has been conducted abroad. With his white coat and held cuban flags and brazilian, he and the rest of the first 200 doctors repatriated from Brazil were welcomed at the Havana airport in the early morning of Friday by the president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who praised his dignity and humanism.

The Ministry of Health cuban decided a week ago to suspend the program More Doctors, which since 2013 has sent thousands of health care workers to Brazil, after criticism of the president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro. A second charter flight returned hours later with 200 other physicians; the rest, about 8,000, will return to the 12 of December. “Begin to arrive to the homeland of the apostles of the health of cuban are #MasQueMedicos. Our tribute to the men and women who made history in Brazil. Welcome home,” tweeted the president of cuba.

His presence in the airport, at five in the morning —a few hours before the opening of a business forum hispanic-cuban in Havana with Pedro Sánchez, and the exhaustive coverage of the return by the news of the television and the newspapers, underline the importance of the call diplomacy of the white robes: represents the last valladar of internationalism, but also the main source of income, ahead of tourism and the sending of remittances— of the island, since the State is left with 75% of their wages. Cuba, which has deployed now a total of 50,000 health-care in 67 countries, enter by this pathway 11,000 million dollars a year.

But if in addition we add the criticism of the far-right Bolsonaro, the missions of health, determinants against the epidemic of cholera in Haiti or ebola in Africa, reinforcing even further its ideological dimension.

The cuban Manuel Alejandro Rodríguez Martínez (left). M. A. S. V.

Bolsonaro, called slavery the work of the sanitary cubans and urged Havana to pay the full salary, in addition to demanding the recognition of their diplomas, an individual hiring and direct by Brasilia and the family reunification of expatriates, not to mention an offer of asylum to those who do not want to return to the island that shot up even more tension with The Government of Havana. The president of the united States, Donald Trump, has praised the initiative of Bolsonaro.

The program More Doctors was the result of the agreement, sponsored by the Pan american Health Organization (PAHO), Cuba had with Brazil since five years ago, during which about 20,000 toilets Casinomaxi have attended 113 million brazilians, according to the Ministry of Health of the island. Used as a political weapon that can be thrown —the ideological affinity of the program with the presidency of Dilma Rousseff also supported the criticisms of Bolsonaro—, the retreat, left neglected, about 30 million brazilians, especially in underserved areas, as has been denounced by local authorities. Diplomacy white has been a mainstay of the cuban policy since the revolution of 1959, 600,000 missions (and 400,000 professionals) in 164 countries.

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Rodríguez Martín returns a year ahead of schedule of the town in the State of Paraná, where he, with a bittersweet taste, “with the pride and satisfaction of duty performed, and the sadness of leaving unattended to people who had never seen a doctor until our arrival. We are very proud to have led a quality life,” he explains. “To exercise our work we get all the facilities for part of the prefecture, both I and my colleague, a doctor who was there for other reasons”, he says without wanting to specify.

But unlike Brazil, in their previous mission, in the Libertador municipality of Caracas, almost play life. “My first mission was also in Venezuela, in Barinas, the land of the commander Hugo Chávez, and was rather quiet. But the situation was complicated after the death of the commander. The population didn’t want to and I received rejection during home visits, but to take free medicines to the population. We also receive threats in the center of comprehensive diagnosis [polyclinic] and the Bolivarian National Guard had to get protection. All the nights we’d get five or six people injured in the protests. We had a really bad time. The mission of Caracas I took my wife, a nurse intensivist, and the 31st of December to have dinner with the two we just had a thigh of chicken. It was a difficult mission”.

In total, the doctor has spent nearly nine years in foreign countries (“I was one in Brazil”, regrets) to resume now your practice in Pinar del Río, whose square and the salary has been preserved for this time. “The wage here in Venezuela, what was becoming my wife, and in Venezuela he perceived also an amount in foreign currency”, he explains. Militant of the Communist Party since 25 years, Rodriguez points out that to join the missions is not a requirement to be, but this implies “a lot more responsibility since you have to assume positions of direction or coordination”.

Even if Rodriguez declines to comment on his salary, Brazil paid $ 3,000 monthly to the cuban Government for each professional the program More Doctors. At the hands of the specialist arrived 750. Very little, but a fortune compared with the $ 30 that you enter the month a specialist within the island. And , even less, if you put a price on the excellence of health care of cuba, which has made the training of its professionals a source of pride and a source of foreign exchange.

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