Haeena Ismail, DA MP on the portfolio committee on health, has written to Minister of Health Joe Phaahla demanding that he releases the 2021-2022 annual report of the Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro Medical Collaboration Programme.
Ismail had on October 14 made similar demands to Phaahla in parliament. At the time, the minister said his department was in consultation with provincial health departments to get the full details and figures about the programme.
“The response will be ready in a week or two and will be furnished to the honourable member as soon as it is ready,” said Phaahla at the time.
However, it has been a month since Ismail made the request.
Ismail said the programme has courted controversy for a number of years with health experts including professor Shabir Madhi, the dean of the faculty of health sciences and professor of vaccinology at Wits University saying “many provinces continue to fund students to undertake studies in other countries, including Cuba, under the pretext of South Africa not being able to train enough doctors, which is incoherent with the policy of not listing medical skills under the critical skills set”.
Said Ismail: “While the programme might have originated from a genuine goal of strengthening South Africa’s health sector, it seems the most recent use is another avenue to ensure funds are routed to Cuba.
“Just over the past few years, the ANC government has tried every trick in the book to ensure taxpayer money reaches Cuban shores, from illegally importing Interferon [Heberon Alpha-2B] via the SA National Defence Force’s Operation Thusano, which has made payments of R1.4-billion to Cuba, to extending a R63-million ‘economic assistance package’ loan to Cuba in the previous financial year, to the cumulative R308-million to employ 229 doctors and 65 Cuban engineers, to the R50-million in food donation which formed part of a larger donation of R350-million.”
Ismail added that there is a critical skills shortage of 27 000 in South Africa’s health sector.
“South Africa needs every qualified doctor, but given its astronomical cost, the Department of Health’s unwillingness to ensure other foreign-trained doctors are registered, the annual chaos of placing community service doctors, and the relatively small number of Cuban graduates, it is clear that the Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro Medical Collaboration Programme deserves close scrutiny.”
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