¿Qué dice, Pedro?

 Something else to talk about with Pedro Luis Pedroso, deputy director general of Multilateral Affairs and International Law at the Cuban Foreign Ministry in D.C. next Tuesday, would be this, as reported in PanAm Post;

The Más Médicos (More Doctors) program of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has become steeped in further controversy after the Cuban government threatened to suspend the licenses of those Cuban doctors working in Brazil who return to the island for obligatory vacations without bringing their families.

The measure seeks to avoid a mass defection of Cuban medical staff, with Havana fearful of the example set by Venezuela where many loaned doctors failed to return to Cuba.

Brazil has over 10,000 Cuban doctors subcontracted through the Cuban government. Reportedly the government keeps about 90% of what Brazil pays for the medicos, with the doctors getting the remaining 10%. From each according to his ability!

The Brazilian health ministry has said that it’s unable to interfere in labor relations between the Cuban government and its citizens. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is the body which supervises the link between Cuba and Brazil.

And PAHO has its own agenda;

Scandal erupted in Brazil after the leak of a video in which PAHO coordinator Mary Alice Fortunato Barbosa is heard discussing with Brazilian officials how the program is designed to cement bilateral relations between Cuba and Brazil, leaving other nations to one side.

PAHO has defended itself, saying that More Doctors is carried out “in compliance with legal requirements and international norms in transparent manner, and with rigorous administrative and financial procedures.”