Government's 'unreasonable' terms stifled Cuba medical programme - Dawes

 

By Kimone Witter  

 

 

Opposition Spokesman on Health Dr. Alfred Dawes is claiming that the Cuban government was given unreasonable terms in its negotiations with the Jamaican government for a new technical cooperation programme.

 

The agreement would have seen the continuation of the deployment of Cuban medical professionals in the public health system.

 

The government on Thursday announced that the programme would be discontinued due to the inability of both governments to agree on new terms and conditions for the programme after the previous arrangement expired in February 2023.

 

Speaking Thursday night at the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament, Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith went further, explaining that where the programme came into conflict with the country's laws and best international labour law practices, an agreement could not be reached on how to correct those issues. 

 

However, Dr. Dawes is questioning the rationale of the Jamaican government in seeking to change the terms of the agreement, insisting that it was influenced by the United States, a claim the government has denied. 

 

"As I am reliably informed, we gave the Cuban government terms that they could not agree to. So it was inevitable that the programme would end. But now, we have a pretty good reason that we can put out there to say that we can't agree, meaning Cuba and Jamaica, but it's more than that. If you look at it from a deeper level, the argument is specious that we can't negotiate," he contended.

 

Pressed on what terms the Cubans could not agree to, Dr. Dawes suggested the issue was financial. 

 

"Financially it just wouldn't make any sense. I don't think they want it out there because I was silenced, but financially it wouldn't make sense for the Cubans nor the Cuban government," he claimed.

 

The opposition spokesman was speaking Friday on the Morning Agenda on Power 106. 

 

In the meantime, physicist Dr. Dennis Minott has expressed his disappointment with the discontinuation of the countries by lateral arrangement with Cuba, having been a beneficiary of the medical programme.

 

Dr. Minott, who also spoke on the Morning Agenda, said he has been treated for heart and eye conditions by Cuban doctors and nurses who showed competence and enthusiasm about their work. 

 

"This particular timing right now is as if to say Jamaica, as the largest Caribbean beneficiary of Cuban [health care workers] should be slapping them in the face at this time.... I'm not a political representative of Portland, but I can speak as a member of a church community that has benefitted greatly from Cuban medical assistance. The poor people can't afford so much that they got at the clinics run by nobody else who would go there, but the Cubans or the Cuban trained doctors," he asserted.