Exported to Venezuela, miserable Cuban doctors clamor to get into U.S.

[MADem]

5. They didn't pay them well to start--now with inflation they can barely

survive. Raul "trades" them, like slaves, for oil. It's a terrible situation for them. They have no choice. They're often sent into the hinterlands, and are heavily monitored if they are working in a city environment.

Cuba, which prides itself on a comprehensive healthcare system and has long exported doctors and nurses to friendly countries, maintains an estimated 10,000 healthcare providers in Venezuela. The medical outreach program is intended as partial payment for 100,000 barrels of oil that President Nicolas Maduro's government ships to the Castro administration each day.

Nelia, a 29-year-old general practitioner from Santiago de Cuba, arrived in Bogota last month after what she said was a nightmarish year working in Venezuela's Barrio Adentro program in the city of Valencia. She declined to disclose her last name for fear of reprisal back home...She described the workload as "crushing." Instead of the 15 to 18 procedures a day she performed in Cuba, she did as many as 90 in Venezuela, she said. Crime is rampant, the pay is an abysmal $20 per month and Cubans are caught in the middle of Venezuela's civil unrest, which pits followers of the late President Hugo Chavez — whose handpicked successor is Maduro — against more conservative, market-oriented forces.

"The Chavistas want us there and the opposition does not. And there are more opposition people than Chavistas," said Nelia, who was interviewed in a Colombian immigration office in Bogota.