Brazil to deploy 6,000 Cuban doctors in remote areas: minister

Brazil to deploy 6,000 Cuban doctors in remote areas: minister

BRASILIA | Mon May 6, 2013 6:58pm EDT



(Reuters) - Brazil plans to hire 6,000 Cuban doctors to serve in remote

parts of the country where medical services are deficient or

nonexistent, despite controversy over the quality of their training.



Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said on Monday negotiations

were under way involving the Washington-based Pan-American Health

Organization (PAHO) to allow the Cuban doctors to practice in Brazil.



Brazilian medical associations have opposed Cuban-trained doctors

practicing in their country, arguing that standards at Cuba's medical

schools are lower than in Brazil and equivalent in some cases to a

nursing education in Brazil.



Over the past decade Cuba's communist government has sent 30,000 doctors

to work in poor neighborhoods of Venezuela, Havana's closest political

ally in Latin America, under an agreement reached with the late

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez that involved an exchange of medical

services for cheap oil.



The Cubans are expected to be sent to poor corners of the Northeast of

Brazil and the Amazon jungle where Brazilian doctors are reluctant to serve.



"Cuba is very proficient in the areas of medicine, pharmaceuticals and

biotechnology and Brazil is considering receiving Cubans doctors in

talks that involve PAHO," Patriota said at a news conference with Cuban

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.



The Federal Council of Medicine, a body that represents doctors in

Brazil, criticized as "irresponsible" the government's proposal to allow

in doctors whose "technical and ethical quality was in doubt."



It issued a statement demanding foreign doctors be recertified in Brazil

before being allowed to practice.



Foreign Minister Patriota said the plan to bring Cuban doctors to Brazil

would strengthen ties between Havana and Brasilia that have expanded

since the leftist Worker's Party came to power a decade ago.



He announced that Brazil will finance the modernization of five airports

in Cuba, where Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht is already

building a container terminal at the port of Mariel.



Earlier on Monday in Havana, Brazil's Trade Minister Fernando Pimentel

signed an agreement setting conditions for a $176 million loan from its

giant development bank BNDES to upgrade and expand the airports of

Havana, Santa Clara, Holguin, Cayo Coco and Cayo Largo.



(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)



http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/06/us-cuba-brazil-doctors-idUSBRE9450U620130506