On 2 May 2025, at the International Solidarity with Cuba conference in Havana, Palestinian doctor Watan Jamil, who trained at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Cuba, spoke about the enduring legacy and necessity of Cuban medical internationalism. He said, ‘the imperialists accuse Cuban doctors of being slaves, us Cuban doctors, those of us who have been developed and educated in Cuba, are honoured to be slaves. Slaves in the service of humanity, the people’s revolution and to all the people in the Global South.’ His words reflected Cuba’s historic and ongoing commitment to sending and training doctors and healthcare workers around the world.
In recent months, the US has intensified its efforts to undermine Cuba’s medical brigades. The Trump administration has announced US visa restrictions, not only for Cuban officials but also for any foreign leaders or institutions involved in facilitating Cuban healthcare professionals to serve their populations. During a recent Caribbean tour, ‘Cuban-American’ hardliner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, threatened to revoke visas from regional governments hosting Cuban medics. This threat extends to the families of these officials. He slandered these missions as ‘forced labour’, a cynical lie aimed at discrediting one of the world’s most respected humanitarian programmes.
Some regional governments have bowed to imperialist blackmail. Following a meeting with Rubio in early May, the Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis announced plans to renegotiate the country’s agreement with Cuba, paying healthcare workers directly rather than through the Cuban state. This is against the Cuban practice, where the Cuban government takes the payment which is reinvested into the island’s healthcare provision and training, and pays the doctors a proportion as their salary. The decision panders to the baseless US accusations that Cubans are ‘slaves’. But this response is the exception, not the rule.
Across the Caribbean, most leaders have defended the Cuban doctors who have long stood with their people in times of need. Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley has been especially outspoken, even though Cuban doctors have not served in Barbados since the Covid-19 pandemic. ‘If the cost of it is the loss of my visa, to the US, then so be it… what the Cubans have been able to do for us… has been to save lives and limbs and sight for many a Caribbean person,’ she declared. Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, also defended the Cuban programmes: ‘Does anybody expect that I, because I want to keep a visa, that I would let 60 persons from the poor and working people to die? It will never happen.’
As Helen Yaffe reports in Jacobin (March 2025), Cuba’s medical internationalism has, for decades, far exceeded the reach of institutions like the World Health Organisation (WHO), particularly in service to underdeveloped countries. Cuban health professionals have been stationed in around 60 countries, offering free, high-quality care to communities long abandoned by imperialist powers. Today, despite the economic crisis in Cuba, over 24,000 Cuban health workers serve in 56 countries. Since 1960, more than 600,000 have worked in over 180 nations. From 1999 to 2015, Cuban medics saved over 6 million lives. Over 73,000 students, mostly from oppressed nations, have graduated from Cuban medical schools.
Cuba’s healthcare system is a revolutionary weapon. Built on socialist planning, it prioritises prevention, universal access, and community care, without the parasitic interference of pharmaceutical monopolies. Even under an intensifying and genocidal US blockade that restricts access to medicines, medical equipment, and essential supplies, Cuba’s healthcare system continues to serve its people and those beyond its borders. Moreover, Cuban international medical missions remain a crucial economic lifeline. At its peak in 2018, Cuba’s medical missions earned over $6.4bn, funds that are reinvested into the nation’s health, education, and social welfare. Since then, US sabotage has succeeded in reducing Cuba’s earnings.
As Yaffe explains, from the early days of the revolution, Cuba made internationalism a cornerstone. In 1963, the socialist government sent its first doctors to newly independent Algeria, linking their mission directly to liberation struggles worldwide. In Guinea-Bissau, Cuban medics supported the anti-colonial struggle, working in guerrilla-held zones where there was very limited healthcare. By the 1970s, thousands were working across Africa, building healthcare where imperialism left only disease and neglect. By 2024, over 76,000 Cuban health workers had served in 39 African nations. In 2004, Cuba and Venezuela launched Operation Miracle, offering free eye surgery to restore sight to the poor across Latin America. It has now reached 34 countries and today is one of the clearest expressions of what socialist internationalism can achieve.
In 2005, Cuba established the Henry Reeves International Medical Brigade to respond to emergency medical situations. Named after a US citizen who fought in Cuba’s war of independence against Spanish colonialism, the brigade embodies international solidarity at its best. From Guatemala to Pakistan, by 2017, Henry Reeve brigades had treated over 3.5 million people affected by disasters and epidemics in 21 countries. During the Covid-19 pandemic alone, 57 brigades were deployed to 40 countries, saving over a million lives.
Cuba doesn’t just send doctors abroad; it trains them on the island. Since the 1960s, tens of thousands of foreign students have been trained in Cuban medical schools. Founded in 1999, ELAM is the world’s largest medical school, having trained more than 29,000 doctors from over 100 countries by 2019. Most are from working-class and peasant backgrounds. Cuba has also helped build medical schools in 11 countries.
For many years US governments have claimed that Cuban medical brigades ‘enrich the regime’ while ordinary Cubans suffer. But it is precisely the US blockade that deprives Cubans of supplies, not the doctors saving lives abroad. This latest attack is not about ‘forced labour’, it is about destroying an alternative. It is about burying an example that dares to show that another world is possible, one where healthcare is a human right, and where solidarity, not exploitation, shapes the future.
Viva Cuba!
Defend Cuban medical internationalism!
Expose the lies of imperialism!
Destinie Sánchez
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 306 June/July 2025
