Italian region defies US pressure to end Cuban doctors programme

POLISTENA, Italy (AP) — Italy’s southern Calabria region is the rare place in Europe where Cuba sends medical professionals under a long-running program that the United States wants to stamp out.

Cuba’s doctors for decades have worked in developing nations such as Gambia and Venezuela, skilled in providing care with scarce resources. 

Over 200 now staff remote hospitals across Calabria, Italy’s poorest region at the tip of the country’s boot. 

A shortage of homegrown healthcare workers had forced some hospital departments to close.

“It was a disaster. I was keeping the emergency room open all by myself,” the chief physician of Polistena hospital, Francesco Moschella, told The Associated Press, recalling the days before the Cubans arrived in January 2023.

Their presence triggered a visit this year from US officials. 

The US has long criticised the Cuban programme and called it a moneymaker for the socialist government that the Trump administration has isolated, sanctioned, and wants to see changed.

Facing US pressure, some Caribbean and Central American countries have canceled Cuban missions.

But Calabria’s governor has refused. 

Even if Cuba’s socialism doesn’t fit with his political views, he says the region depends on it.

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