When Italy was stricken by the Corona virus in the early stage of the pandemic, Italian authorities desperately turned to Cuba for medical help. An initial brigade of 52 was sent, followed by hundreds of others. All returned to Cuba after the emergency, being cheered as they walked down the streets.

Now the impoverished, southern Italian area of Calabria has contracted for nearly 500 Cuban medical personnel to save their collapsing hospital system.

The Guardian reports that the Calabrian public health system has been neglected for years, with cost-cutting resulting in dozens of hospitals closing. Not only that, but the “mafia and political corruption have also taken their toll on services.”

Italian health workers, exhausted after years of neo-liberalism and government indifference, have been leaving the sector in droves.

The right-wing regional president, Roberto Occhiuto, told the Guardian that he “knew that Cuban medicine was one of the best in the world.” He told TeleSur that some Italian politicians “tried to stop our project with bureaucratic hurdles, but we succeeded.”

The Cubans have fanned out across the province, preventing the breakdown of services at hospitals in the regional capital, Reggio, and in the town of Polistena, population 10,000. The Polistena hospital is one of the few remaining regional facilities, servicing 200,000 people in towns across neighbouring provinces.

Francesca Liotta, the director of the Reggio hospital told the Guardian that the Cubans “have the kind of enthusiasm I remember having when I started my career. I always say this: they are giving us oxygen.”

According to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the brigades came to Italy after a larger Cuban deployment to Mexico. Starting in September 2023, 610 Cuban doctors joined local medical services for a period of three years. As in Italy they will “fill hospital posts in chronically underserved areas.”

Portugal is also turning to Cuba to strengthen its health system. TeleSur reports that 300 Cuban doctors will work there for three years.

Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, nearly 600,000 doctors have served in 166 countries, according to TeleSur. Currently, about 23,792 Cuban health professionals are providing services in 56 countries.

Cuba has earned desperately needed foreign currency through these medical missions, which has been exploited by its imperialist enemies as an opening to criticise Cuba.

The BMJ reflects this propaganda by retailing claims of “medical slave trade.”

However, Asbel Díaz Fonseca, a Cuban surgeon serving in Calabria refutes that. “This is a total lie,” he told the Guardian. “There is no obligation for us to do this. We are here because we want to be here. We also learn from the experiences. It is a two-way exchange.”

Criticisms mean nothing to Calabrian regional president, Roberto Occhiuto. “Today the same people who criticised me are clamouring for more Caribbean medicine,” he told the Guardian.

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