Cuba’s Brain Drain
By Benjamin Noria
HAVANA TIMES – Many professionals are leaving Cuba in search of a better life, and you can deduce that the brain drain is especially dangerous right now. A brain drain, or talent drain, is the loss of professionals and scientists with a university education who decide to emigrate to try their chances in another country.
It seems the Cuban Government has no concern about this mass exodus of professionals. This is clear because no visible strategy has been drawn up to hold onto this personnel.
Doctors’ wages haven’t gone up; working conditions haven’t improved; a transport system that ensures professionals can get to work hasn’t been created; a stimulus plan with trips to hotels, beaches and campsites for affordable prices hasn’t been created.
They are wasting resources training doctors, lawyers, and engineers in Cuba. The only thing they’re doing is exporting brilliant researchers and scientists to the United States, Europe and other Latin American countries.
The economic crisis is the major factor for Cuba’s brain drain. An intolerable and brutal crisis. Furthermore, they aren’t investing in scientific and technological breakthroughs in Cuba. This means that every industry is declining and as a result, graduates in different fields can’t find fulfillment in their jobs.
The sugar industry is in ruins, as is the fishing industry, beekeeping, poultry, agriculture and many more. Nothing works. The same Government has been mismanaging the Cuban economy for the 64 years it’s been in power.
Nevertheless, totalitarian governments are founded upon a hate culture and contempt for intelligence. Why? Well, that’s because when a person studies, they feel liberated from religion and ideology, and what dictatorships really want is to have complete mind control over their subordinates.
George Orwell’s book “1984” is an example of this phenomenon. The British author’s book talks about the omnipresent Big Brother, which is typical of autocratic, absolutist and dictatorial governments, a society where information is manipulated and there is mass surveillance and political repression.
That said, if the Government doesn’t solve this problem of Cuba’s brain drain, the entire world will shower it with criticism and they’ll suffocate themselves in despair, because every country needs specialized professionals to work in their courts of law, hospitals, universities, and institutes.
Also, other countries even offer student grants for master’s degrees and doctorates to prevent brain drain, as well as post-graduate and pre-graduate courses. These grants are even offered to international students.
What does the Cuban Government have to offer? They can’t do anything because they don’t have anything, not even for their own citizens, because they’ve spent everything on repression and propaganda. The only thing they have is to wait and see what this country’s very uncertain future might be.
Peter,
The lack of health care professionals in Canada has been a serious issue for many years. Health care in Canada is a provincial matter not a federal one. Though, the federal government does provide transfer payments to their provincial counterparts.
Absolutely, having foreign trained health professionals practice in Canada would certainly ameliorate the intense shortage. The governments are fast tracking foreign nurses to practice in Canada. Nurses particularly from the Philippines are being welcomed probably because they speak English from the get go.
Medical doctors on the other hand must go through significant hoops to practice in Canada. The medical associations put up barriers making foreign doctors ineligible to practice. And, if those foreign physicians don’t speak English or French forget it. Very sad.
In the meanwhile many, many Canadians lack a family doctor. It may not be so bad in the major cities but in rural Canada the lack of medical doctors is life threatening.
One can petition the government of whatever stripe and the bureaucracy takes over so that little is done.
Stephen, I’m surprised that Canada is not interested in doctors from Cuba. Cuban doctors in Brazil who have fled the dictatorship are being retrained to Brazilin standards and practices. I believe this occurs in other nations too. Language is not a barrier. That makes sense; it’s a lot cheaper than educating someone from zero. Why not suggest this to the government?
Yes, it is a tragedy for Cuba’s future when its best and brightest must flee the country because of the dictatorial incompetence of the totalitarian government. Benjamin states the current government is wasting resources by training doctors, lawyers, engineers and a host of other highly trained professionals only to have them emigrate.
Where do they emigrate to? Benjamin states these brilliant Cubans go to the United States, Europe, Latin America. Emigrating to Spanish speaking countries perhaps provides them with an opportunity to continue to practice in their chosen field. I don’t know. If so, that’s a good thing for the individual emigré and the host country.
However, there are some countries where Spanish is not the nation’s official language. Here I am referring to Canada. Any well educated professional such as a doctor, lawyer, teacher, engineer emigrating from Cuba or any other non English or French speaking country will certainly not be practicing their profession.
Unfortunately, for the emigre and the new host country that newly arrived person will be driving a taxi or doing other menial work to sustain him/herself. In Canada, for example, there is such a shortage of family physicians that the majority of Canadians do not have access to a family doctor.
Cuba trains and has many doctors which it exports to foreign countries who requests them for a price. Cuban doctors practicing in Cuba are over worked and overly underpaid.
Benjamin says: “. . . if the Government doesn’t solve this problem of Cuba’s brain drain, the entire world will shower it with criticism and they’ll suffocate themselves in despair, because every country needs specialized professionals to work in their courts of law, hospitals, universities, and institutes.”
True. But don’t come to Canada at the present moment because even with English or French proficiency emigrants from whatever profession will meet many road blocks trying to practice in their home country profession. As stated, the majority of these well trained professionals must take on demeaning work just to sustain themselves. They deserve better.
Shame on Canada. Like Cuba, Canada too is wasting much needed highly trained foreign human resources .