Heroes in Italy, Cuban doctors will be missed in Brazil.

The celebration that the Italian population is holding for Cuban doctors who are arriving in the country to help fight the new coronavirus is a warning to Bolsonaro. 

It's worth remembering that one of the inaugural crimes of his government was the persecution of Cuban doctors brought to the country to participate in the Mais Médicos program, launched by Dilma Rousseff's government in 2013.  

In a Brazil where 15% of municipalities lacked a single healthcare professional, while 1,900 localities had only one doctor for every 3,000 inhabitants, the program produced immediate relief in the care of the population living in the poorest areas of the country, including the abandoned outskirts of large cities.  

Pressed by Bolsonaro's own irresponsible rhetoric, in the weeks leading up to his government's inauguration, Havana preempted any aggressive measures and recalled its professionals, opening thousands of positions that, as could be predicted, were never properly filled. Even those Cuban professionals who decided to continue living in Brazil, working as waiters, drivers, and in other jobs in the hope of being authorized to practice medicine, were never rehired. 

The result was a continuous weakening of medical care for the population. Before the discovery of COVID-19, the country was already suffering from the vertiginous growth of dengue hemorrhagic fever, the deadly form of the disease, which jumped 149% in just one year. Due to disinterest and lack of commitment, even the open positions – for Brazilian professionals – in the Mais Médicos program have not been filled. Worse than that, they are decreasing.  

Whether Brazilian or foreign, doctors participating in the program sign a 3-year contract, which can be renewed at the end. The Bolsonaro government refuses to do this -- even in March 2020, when COVID-19 is a universal threat that has already claimed its first victims in the country.  

In an emergency of this magnitude, when there is an obvious need to retain experienced and trained professionals in the country, the government continues to dismiss members of the Mais Médicos program whose contracts have expired. As if the country were an island of health and well-being, they continue to receive the classic thank-you notes that, in a bureaucratic tone, inform the recipient that their time with the program has ended. Meanwhile, in Italy, the arrival of Cuban doctors is cause for celebration – we are talking about a country that boasts one of the best-structured social welfare systems in Europe. Incapable of prioritizing the real needs of the population over his ideological fantasies, Bolsonaro will also be held accountable for this irresponsibility in the future.  

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