Ministers of Health of Cuba and Bahamas. (Photo: José Manuel Correa)

By Roberto Morejón 

Cuba remains committed to expanding collaboration in the fields of health and science with other countries, especially those in the Global South, despite the U.S. media campaign, accompanied by restrictions, aimed at discrediting such efforts. 

In this context, discussions took place in Havana between the Ministers of Public Health, José Ángel Portal of Cuba, and Michael Deville of the Bahamas, who emphasized opportunities to strengthen ties in healthcare assistance and the training of doctors and specialists. 

Cuba and the Bahamas are also working on other areas of mutual interest, such as climate change and education. 

The goal is to promote initiatives to improve access to and the quality of healthcare services in both countries, which is why the officials spoke of a new chapter in mutual contributions. 

Cuba and the Bahamas have highlighted this type of assistance for over two decades, with professionals sent from Havana, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, technicians, and specialists. 

For instance, Cuba sent nurses to Nassau in 2022 after COVID-19 reduced the availability of healthcare workers. 

Bahamians have engaged in health tourism in Havana, a city that offers scholarships to young people from the Atlantic archipelago to study, benefiting 19 individuals according to 2024 figures. 

Such exchanges have been discussed on several occasions by leaders of the two countries at the highest level, such as when the Honorable Prime Minister Philip Davis traveled to Havana in 2022. 

The lands where Fidel Castro and Lynden Pindling were born celebrated the 50th anniversary of the establishment of relations just over two years ago. 

After such a fruitful period, the two governments are seeking the most suitable formulas and areas for collaboration, including healthcare. 

Bahamas faces shortages of human resources in certain healthcare services and needs foreign expertise while training its own personnel. 

Campaigns led by the U.S. State Department, with Marco Rubio at the forefront, aim to undermine these contributions despite the needs of Caribbean nations and the Global South in general. 

Paradoxically, in many of these countries, education and healthcare systems have trained personnel who later migrated to the industrialized North, where they are offered better salaries. 

This reality is ignored by the authors of the feverish offensive against Cuba's medical missions abroad