The Ba­hamas gov­ern­ment says it is paus­ing the re­cruit­ment of nurs­es from Cu­ba and will al­so can­cel its ex­ist­ing con­tracts with a Cuban re­cruit­ment agency.

Health and Well­ness Min­is­ter, Dr. Michael Darville, who paid a vis­it to Ha­vana two weeks ago to re­view the cur­rent re­cruit­ment pro­gramme, told Par­lia­ment that the gov­ern­ment will en­ter in­to di­rect em­ploy­ment con­tracts with Cuban health­care work­ers who are cur­rent­ly in The Ba­hamas.

“Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with the US gov­ern­ment through the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, my min­istry ne­go­ti­at­ed new con­trac­tu­al terms with the Cuban re­cruit­ment agen­cies,” Darville told leg­is­la­tors dur­ing the 2025/2026 bud­get de­bate.

“Af­ter fruit­ful ne­go­ti­a­tions, we are pre­pared to can­cel all ex­ist­ing con­trac­tu­al agree­ments and en­ter in­to a di­rect con­trac­tu­al agree­ment with Cuban health­care pro­fes­sion­als cur­rent­ly in The Ba­hamas.

“Those who agree to these terms will sign the new em­ploy­ment agree­ment by my min­istry and re­main in [the] coun­try for de­ploy­ment across the Fam­i­ly Is­lands,” he added.

Last week, the Guyana gov­ern­ment said it would be im­ple­ment­ing new con­di­tions un­der which Cuban health pro­fes­sion­als will be em­ployed there as it plans to em­bark on the “ag­gres­sive” re­cruit­ment of for­eign nurs­es to work at sev­er­al new hos­pi­tals that are be­ing built across the coun­try.

“We’re re­cruit­ing peo­ple from around the world—not con­fined to Cu­ba—but we’re work­ing to en­sure that peo­ple who come here from Cu­ba that they meet the de­f­i­n­i­tion be­cause of what the US Sec­re­tary of State men­tioned that the con­di­tions of work here don’t run afoul of the re­quire­ments set by the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca,” Vice Pres­i­dent Bhar­rat Jagdeo told his week­ly news con­fer­ence.

Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­tries have de­fend­ed the Cuban health brigade pro­gramme af­ter Wash­ing­ton an­nounced the ex­pan­sion of an ex­ist­ing Cu­ba-re­lat­ed visa re­stric­tion pol­i­cy that tar­gets “forced labour” linked to the Cuban labour ex­port pro­gramme.

US Sec­re­tary of State, Mar­co Ru­bio, said this ex­pand­ed pol­i­cy ap­plies to cur­rent or for­mer Cuban gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing for­eign gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, who are be­lieved to be re­spon­si­ble for, or in­volved in, the Cuban labour ex­port pro­gramme, par­tic­u­lar­ly Cu­ba’s over­seas med­ical mis­sions.

Ru­bio, the son of Cuban im­mi­grants who left Cu­ba in pur­suit of the Amer­i­can dream, said that the new pol­i­cy al­so ap­plies to the im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly of those peo­ple sup­port­ing the Cuban pro­gramme.

“The de­part­ment has al­ready tak­en steps to im­pose visa re­stric­tions on sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing Venezue­lans, un­der this ex­pand­ed pol­i­cy,” he added.

Darville told leg­is­la­tors that those who do not ac­cept the new em­ploy­ment terms will be al­lowed to wrap up their af­fairs and re­turn to Cu­ba.

“All fur­ther re­cruit­ment ex­er­cis­es of Cuban teach­ers and health­care work­ers are cur­rent­ly on hold pend­ing the out­come of the on­go­ing dis­cus­sions be­tween the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and our rel­e­vant coun­ter­parts in the Unit­ed States,” he added.

The gov­ern­ment here has in­sist­ed that it is not en­gaged in forced labour and in May Prime Min­is­ter Philip Brave Davis told re­porters the gov­ern­ment was rene­go­ti­at­ing its labour agree­ments with Cu­ba and would pay all for­eign work­ers en­gaged with the gov­ern­ment di­rect­ly.

In Par­lia­ment, Darville re­it­er­at­ed the need for Cuban health­care work­ers due to short­ages in the pub­lic sec­tor, which he said are due to poor plan­ning on the part of suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions and oth­er na­tions lur­ing Ba­hami­an work­ers away with in­cen­tives.

The Min­istry of Health and Well­ness said that it will con­tin­ue to re­cruit spe­cial­ist nurs­es and oth­er health work­ers from Africa, the Philip­pines and In­dia to ad­dress the short-term short­ages in the coun­try, while con­tin­u­ing to train Ba­hami­an health­care work­ers.

The min­is­ter said that there are three oph­thal­mol­o­gists as­sist­ing with the Cuban eye pro­gramme, three nurs­es, 10 bio­med­ical en­gi­neers, eight lab tech­ni­cians, and 11 X-ray tech­ni­cians from Cu­ba cur­rent­ly work­ing in the pub­lic health sec­tor.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of these work­ers are sched­uled to be de­ployed to the Fam­i­ly Is­lands as part of my min­istry’s plan to pro­vide lab and di­ag­nos­tic ser­vices is­land-to-is­land,” Darville said, adding that “sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment has al­ready been made in cross-train­ing these Cuban al­lied health­care pro­fes­sion­als and the in­stal­la­tion of lab dig­i­tal di­ag­nos­tic equip­ment is cur­rent­ly on the way, sup­port­ed by some Cuban bio­med­ical en­gi­neers work­ing side-by-side with sup­pli­ers from the Unit­ed States.”

Darville said Cuban work­ers re­ceive the same ben­e­fits as Ba­hami­an em­ploy­ees and are “treat­ed well”. —NAS­SAU, Ba­hamas (CMC)