In Global Voices (14 March 2026), Emma Lewis shares, “Behind the political pressures, policies [and] propaganda are real people.”
Perhaps Jamaicans should have seen this coming when the government, back in 2025, announced it would be reviewing the decades-old programme that brought hundreds of Cuban medical personnel to its shores — an unusual move, especially for a programme that had been running smoothly for 50 years.
The current U.S. administration of Donald Trump, however, has been painting the Cuban medical brigade programme as one of “forced labour” — a perception many regional territories initially resisted. As Jamaica’s minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, emphasised on March 20, 2025, “Given the MOU’s expiration last year, we had already begun a review process before international concerns were raised. While we have identified a few areas for alignment with our own overseas labour programmes, we are confident that the Cuban programme is a legitimate bilateral cooperation programme, not an example of trafficking.”
Yet, changes to the arrangement seemed inevitable. Following a media briefing with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on March 17 last year, Minister of Health and Wellness Christopher Tufton hinted at what was to come: “There is a conversation that is taking place looking at the existing MOU, looking at the possibilities for change, and so there is an opportunity, given the recent discussions coming out of the U.S. […] for us to clarify issues and maybe adjust elements of the agreement.”
At the time, the Cuban Embassy in Jamaica shared an article detailing the benefits of the flagship Jamaica-Cuba Eye Care Programme, noting that Cuban medical personnel “bridged the gap” in Jamaica’s health care programme: “The Jamaica-Cuba Eyecare Programme doesn’t just offer medical treatment—it provides a lens through which to examine what healthcare could be when nations prioritize people over partisan politics and results over rhetoric.”
Fast-forward to the announcement by Jamaica’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade on March 5, 2026: “The Government of Jamaica has taken the decision to discontinue the current arrangement concerning the deployment of medical professionals in the public health sector by the Government of Cuba […] as both governments were unable to agree on the terms and conditions of a new technical cooperation arrangement, following the expiration of the previous agreement in February 2023.”
The statement added that Jamaica was willing to engage medical professionals in the country “on an individual basis, in keeping with local labour laws,” until the end of their scheduled stay. Minister Kamina Johnson Smith said in parliament that the decision was not influenced by the United States. [. . .]
For full article, see https://globalvoices.org/2026/03/14/concerns-grow-as-jamaica-ends-cuban-medical-programme/
In Global Voices (14 March 2026), Emma Lewis shares, “Behind the political pressures, policies [and] propaganda are real people.” Perhaps Jamaicans should have seen this coming when the government, back in 2025, announced it would be reviewing the decades-old programme that brought hundreds of Cuban medical personnel to its shores — an unusual move, especially for a