Minister of Health and Wellness, the Hon. Dr. Michael Darville provided an update this week on Cuban healthcare professionals in the country.

In reports earlier this year The Bahamas was called out by the United States for its practice of recruiting Cuban healthcare professionals who only got to keep a small portion of their salaries while the rest was sent to an agency in Cuba. Those contracts were since canceled and offers were made for direct contracts to be entered into by the healthcare professionals or they could opt to return home.

According to Dr. Darville the Bahamas government is still in talks with US officials about the way forward on this issue. He said, “I made a statement that the Bahamas government is prepared to go into a direct contractual agreement with Cuban workers. That is now at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with our counterparts to the north and once we get clarity on that we will begin the entire process across the country.”

The minister said most of the Cuban workers are involved in allied healthcare services such as X-Ray and laboratory technicians. “They’re a part of a program that we’re putting together to ensure that every family island have lab and diagnostics and we’re about to execute that program. Now that all the equipment is in the country we will start putting them in place and once that’s done we will finalize our plans for the Cuban allied healthcare professionals,” Dr. Darville said.