The Cuban dissident doctor who left through the wrong door.
And the hospital in Roraima, where there were only indigenous people and Cuban doctors. They explained to me where their Brazilian colleagues were.
Dr. Ramona Matos (is she really?) the Cuban doctor who requested diplomatic asylum in the DEM party in the Chamber of Deputies, seems a bit confused.
If his gesture was intended as a planned "political action," he shouldn't have abandoned the "Mais Médicos" program through Congressman Ronaldo Caiado, a kind of icon of the rural caucus, an openly right-wing figure, and an easy target for any counterattack from the program's defenders, as, incidentally, 247 documented.
In short, he should have left through a less vulnerable door. And there were dozens of possibilities within the Chamber itself, where, they say, 513 parliamentarians work.
I don't question Dr. Ramona's arguments regarding remuneration. Especially since she lumps reais and dollars together, creating a monetary confusion.
What I would like to recount here – and here he comes with his usual nonsense, the so-called "commentators" must be saying, rubbing their hands together – I was saying that I would like to recount an experience I had in Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima, when I was there for several months, as part of a group of professionals in an election campaign.
First of all, Roraima, which today, they say, has progressed a lot, was literally – pardon the somewhat vulgar language – in the "ass end of the world".
His connection to Brazil depended on a single Varig flight per day.
It would leave São Paulo in the late afternoon, pick up the bulk of its passengers in Brasília, make a stop in Manaus, and, if everything worked like clockwork, would be flying over Boa Vista around 2 a.m.
It never worked like clockwork...
On Thursdays, it was a special flight. In Brasília, all the politicians from Roraima, both government and opposition, would board, returning to their "bases." Often, the acting governor would also be on board.
So, if that plane were to crash somewhere in the Amazon rainforest, Roraima would literally be left without a leader.
Which wouldn't be a bad thing at all, by the way. The now progressive state of Roraima could have brought forward by several years the end of the "old politics" that so bothers vice-presidential candidate Marina Silva.
The truth is that doing politics in those remote parts was a very great sacrifice. Even worse was campaigning to elect a politician.
During a campaign, you change your habits, you alter your behavior. I, for example, learned to eat couscous for breakfast.
The change in eating habits would eventually lead me, on a sweltering night, to the Central Hospital, the only one in the city.
I was prepared for the worst, and yet I was still surprised. In the hospital lobby, at least a dozen indigenous people were sleeping wrapped in rags. In the nurses' ward, there was blood on the walls.
And the biggest surprise: the doctor who treated me was Cuban.
Despite being a specialist in tropical diseases, and speaking in Portuñol (a mix of Portuguese and Spanish), he explained that all the doctors at the hospital were Cuban.
They had come as part of a package from the state government through agreements with Cuba, primarily due to their area of expertise.
Although I wasn't a tropical disease patient, the Cuban doctor's diagnosis was spot on.
I then asked him why there wasn't a Brazilian doctor at the hospital, since we were in Brazil.
He gave a mischievous smile and said, in his Spanglish:
"And we suspect that Brazilian doctors are willing to work here, take care of indigenous people... They want to be the good life of Rio, of San Pablo."
* This is an opinion article, the responsibility of the author, and does not reflect the opinion of Brasil 247.