On August 4, 2009 an interesting article appeared in the NY Times: "Doctors in Cubs Start over ihe U.S." It addresses the fact that while Cuban doctors have been fleeing to South Florida since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 the pace intensified after 2006, when the Department of Homeland Security began a program that allowed Cuban medical personnel “who study or work
in a third country under the direction of the Cuban government” to
travel to the United States legally. The program has effectively turned
a crowning achievement of Cuba’s foreign policy on its head.
The bottom line is that Cuba may have more physicians than it needs, so it has to farm some of them out to countries in South and Central America, Africa and S.E. Asia. ThisTimes article is well-worth reading.One of the protagonists is a physician (pictured here) who works as a nurse administrator in a hospice in Florida. His salary is > $100,000 per year. In Cuba it would have been ~ $300 per year. The article raises many questions.
