Bahamas to Cancel Medical Contracts with Cuban Government
HAVANA TIMES – Reuters reported on June 16, 2025, that the Bahamas is preparing to cancel its current contracts with Cuban health professionals. Bahamian Health Minister Michel Darville announced the decision during a parliamentary session. The reason for the cancellation is a negotiation underway with the US government.
Darville explained that his ministry will instead establish direct employment contracts with the Cuban healthcare workers currently in the country, instead of via the Cuban government.
“Those who are not interested in this new arrangement will have time to organize their affairs and return to Cuba,” the minister stated. He also said that all arrangements to hire Cuban teachers and medical personnel have been suspended pending the outcome of negotiations.
Despite these statements, in April 2025 Darville traveled to the Cuba Salud event, where he met with his Cuban counterpart Jose Angel Portal Miranda. Official Cuban media claimed that both representatives “proposed new paths to strengthen alliances aimed at improving health services.” Darville emphasized that his government wished to continue collaborating with Cuban health professionals.
The Cuban government earns significant revenue by sending doctors and other healthcare personnel abroad. According to the NGO Archivo Cuba, specialist medical advisors in the Bahamas were paid US $12,000 per month, while biomedical engineers received US $5,000. The NGO stated that over 90% of this income went to the Cuban state. This figure does not include the revenue from Cuban teachers also stationed in the Bahamas.
In total, Archivo Cuba estimates that the Cuban government pockets around USD 15.7 million annually from medical and educational contracts. An additional USD 17 million is generated from travel, insurance, training, and other expenses—bringing the total to USD 32 million per year in Bahamas. The export of medical services is currently one of the Cuban regime’s most lucrative sources of income.
According to Darville, there are currently only 35 Cuban health professionals in the Bahamas, most of them biomedical engineers, lab technicians, and radiologists. The Bahamian official stated that the country is facing a shortage of healthcare workers.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has accused officials involved in Cuba’s professional services export program of engaging in human trafficking and labor exploitation. These accusations are not new and have been rejected by the Cuban government and some Caribbean leaders, who argue that these programs are essential and comply with international labor standards. In February 2025, the US announced visa restrictions for officials involved in the recruitment of Cuban healthcare workers.
Bahamas President Philip Davis denied that his cabinet had any knowledge of exploitative practices. Davis met with Rubio in May 2025 to discuss, among other issues, the situation of the Cuban professionals.
Following that meeting, the Bahamian government decided to pay the doctors directly—a move that did not mark a significant change. According to activists and former Cuban health collaborators, this has happened in other countries as well. When it did, Cuban government officials reportedly asked the contracted workers to transfer part of their salary to an account controlled by the regime. In the case of the Bahamas, there are reports that payments were made in cash to an official named Amaury Gomez.
This is not the first time the Cuban government has lost contracts for medical services. In 2018, then Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro canceled the Mais Medicos program, which paid around US $8,000 per doctor. In April 2025, it was revealed that Paraguay had also canceled its medical cooperation agreement with Cuba.
It remains unclear what will happen to the Cuban healthcare workers who choose to stay in the Bahamas, or whether the Cuban government will allow that option. Doctors who abandon so-called “internationalist missions” are prohibited from entering the island for eight years.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.