What's that about Cuban doctors again?

Venezuela News and Views ^ | Feb. 18, 2005 | A.M. Mora y Leon

[Kitten Festival]

A Castroite state-controlled media organ reports that El Barbudo is incensed about Cuba not having enough doctors in Cuba in this news item here. Oh really? It's enough to make me wonder if he's almost as oblivious to economics as El Supremo.

Of course there aren't enough Cuban doctors, Castro! You sent them off to be spies in Venezuela! Cubans have noticed this. And so have Venezuelans! Daniel researched that Misión Barrio Adentro program and found quite a bit of evidence of such shenanigans here. You've got plenty of Cuban doctors, Castro. It's just that when you send them to another country, you don't have them there to exploit in Cuba.

The problem with this Misión Barrio Adentro Cuban doctor program is you've turned them into human chattel to be sent like a cash crop export to Venezuela to "pay" for all that "free" oil you get from Chavez. They're commodity chits, your very own Oil-for-Doctors program oozing in corruption for the 'love' of the barrio children and since these Cuban doctors now are effectively bushels of corn, you shouldn't be surprised there are shortages when you put artificially low prices on them. Corn after all goes for $2.20 a bushel while Havana doctors on the Castro Exchange trade at 50 cents a day. Not only that, as Miguel points out, real trained doctors from Venezuela are knocked out of the market because of these cheap Cuban 'freebies'. In the more economically serious parts of the world, this is called "dumping."

But never mind that. Why is it that Cuban doctors are paid less than cab drivers and hookers in Havana? Doctors in Havana make fifteen dollars a month. Nurses there make eight bucks a month. This shows how much Fidel values doctors and nurses, paying them accordingly.

[Kitten Festival]

Castro whines about not having enough Cuban doctors. It would help if he would stop forcing them to be spies over in Venezuela.