The second group of members of the Cuban medical brigade in Jamaica —the first had arrived in Santiago de Cuba hours earlier— arrived in Havana on Thursday via José Martí International Airport, after the Caribbean nation’s government decided to terminate the bilateral health cooperation agreement, a move resulting from pressure from the United States.

There they were received by Deputy Prime Minister Eduardo Martínez Díaz; the head of the Department of Social Sector Services, Rolando Yero Travieso; the Minister of Public Health, José Angel Portal Miranda; as well as other health sector leaders, amid a government decision that, according to the Cuban Foreign Ministry, interrupts decades of fruitful collaboration.

In her welcoming remarks, First Deputy Minister of Public Health Tania Margarita Cruz Hernández stated: “The humble will not forget that you were the first to reach places where no doctor had ever gone before.”

She added that this decision deprives the Jamaican people, with whom we share bonds of friendship, of basic health services.

Recently, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that on March 4, the Jamaican Foreign Ministry informed the Cuban Embassy in that country of its government’s unilateral decision to terminate the health cooperation agreement. In response to this move, Cuba decided to repatriate the 277 professionals currently serving in the brigade.

Cuba’s work in Jamaica is a powerful example of genuine cooperation. In the last 30 years alone, more than 4,700 Cuban medical personnel have provided medical care on the Caribbean island. The historic results of this collaboration speak for themselves:

- More than 8,176,000 patients treated.

- 74,302 surgical procedures performed.

- 7,170 births attended.

- More than 90,000 lives saved.

Likewise, through the Operation Miracle program, which has been active in Jamaica since 2010, vision has been restored or improved for nearly 25,000 Jamaicans. (Granma)