V.J. Prashad
Why Cuban doctors deserve Nobel Prize Since the start of Cuban medical internationalism in 1960, more than 400,000 medical workers have worked in more than 40 countries Photo: VOA
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ive years ago, I read the story of Dr Félix Báez, a Cuban doctor who had worked in West Africa to stop the spread of Ebola. Dr Báez was one of 165 Cuban doctors of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade who went to Sierra Leone to fight a terrible outbreak in 2014 of a disease first detected in 1976. During his time there, Dr Báez contracted Ebola. The World Health Organization and the Cuban government rushed Dr Báez to Geneva, where he was treated at the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève. He struggled with the disease, but thanks to the superb care he received, his Ebola receded. He was flown to Cuba. At the airport in Havana, he was received by his wife Vania Ferrer and his sons Alejandro and Félix Luis as well as Health Minister Roberto Morales. At the website Cubasí, Alejandro – a medical student – had written, “Cuba is waiting for you”. In Liberia, the other Cuban doctors also fighting Ebola cheered for Dr Báez. A Facebook page was started called Cuba Is With Félix Báez, while on other social media
RECOVERED: Dr Félix Báez contracted Ebola in West Africa, then returned to continue the fight against the disease.
forums the hashtag #FélixContigo and #FuerzaFélix went viral. Dr. Báez recovered slowly, and then, miraculously, decided to return to West Africa to continue to fight against Ebola. No wonder that there is an international campaign to have the Cuban doctors be honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize. This aspect
26 ColdType | September 2020 | www.coldtype.net
of Cuba’s work is essential to its socialist project of international solidarity through care work. When Dr Báez returned to West Africa, his colleague Dr Ronald Hernández Torres, based in Liberia, wrote on Facebook, “We are here by our decision and we will only withdraw when Ebola is not a health problem for Africa and the world”. This is an important statement, a reaction to the offensive campaign led by the United States government against Cuban internationalism. The US Congressional Research Service reported that “In June 2019, the [US] State Department downgraded Cuba to Tier 3 in its 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report, “for, among other reasons, not taking “action to address forced labour in the foreign medical mission programme.” This policy came alongside pressure by the US government on its allies to expel the Cuban missions from their countries. Strikingly, the UN Human Rights Council – under pressure from Washington – said it would investigate Cuban doctors. Urmila Bhoola (UN special rapporteur on
