New York Times: Cuban Doctors Accuse International Agency of Profiting From Their Work
“As a member of Cuba’s international medical mission, Dr. Ramona Matos Rodríguez received $400 a month while posted in Brazil, a small fortune in her home country. It was not long before she figured out that physicians from other countries also working in Brazil’s ‘More Doctors’ program were taking home 20 times as much. Even the Pan American Health Organization, an international agency affiliated with the United Nations that brokered the arrangement, received a percentage for the doctors’ work. … PAHO, a division of the World Health Organization, made about $75 million off the work of up to 10,000 Cuban doctors who earned substandard wages in Brazil, according to the allegations in a lawsuit filed on Friday in the United States District Court in Miami. … The suit is the first against an international agency over compensation from Cuba’s medical mission. … Although novel, the suit faces an uphill battle: International organizations like the World Health Organization have broad immunity from civil actions…” (Robles, 11/29).