Cuba Is Exporting Doctors to Make Up for Lost Tourism Revenue
Medical missions to Italy and other virus-ravaged nations are helping pay for essentials like food and fuel.
A delegation of Cuban doctors arrives in Angola on April 10 to help the African country fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
Photographer: Ampe Rogerio/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The pandemic was raging out of control and the towns of northern Italy were shuttered and silent when Dr. Yasel Castillo and his team of Cuban doctors rolled up in March. The Havana-trained lung specialist and about 50 colleagues were on a dual mission: to ease the burden on Italian doctors overwhelmed by Europe’s most intense Covid-19 outbreak and to earn hard currency to help Cuba’s economy through its worst crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“The night we got there, the Italians in the airport applauded us,” says Castillo, speaking by phone from Crema, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Milan, where he was based for two and a half months. When Castillo arrived, all the patients on his ward were gravely ill and on ventilators, he says. Now almost all of them are on the road to recovery, and his team is preparing to move on, having treated about 5,000 Italians.