A report reveals that the Cuban regime confiscates more than 75% of its doctors' salaries in Calabria, Italy

A health worker sitting with their back turned on a stretcher holds euros that fade into a dark silhouette, in an allegory about the financial administration of the hospital sector. (Illustrative image, Infobae) A report presented by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights through a webinar yesterday, October 23, revealed that the government of Cuba withheld at least 20 million euros (USD 22.4 million) of the salaries destined for the doctors deployed in Calabria, in southern Italy. The sum amounts to more than three quarters of the public money allocated by the Italian health authorities between December 2022 and March 2025 to compensate for the care work of the foreign professionals. The data, presented by investigative journalist Annarella Grimal, detail that the European region transferred 27.5 million euros for base remuneration for 333 physicians. However, the state entity in charge of managing them, the Cuban Medical Services Commercializer (CSMC), only allowed the workers to receive 6.2 million euros (USD 6.94 million), an amount representing barely 22.5% of the funds issued. The bilateral agreement signed in August 2022 projected the incorporation of 497 health specialists to mitigate the staffing shortage in Calabria's hospitals. To date, 383 health workers have arrived in five successive groups, although at present only 221 remain in the official program. The rest have finished their term, deserted, or been removed by the mission's directors with no possibility of returning after their vacations. Three Cuban health workers remain on a map of Calabria connected by golden threads in an allegory about the conditions of their work deployment. (Illustrative image, Infobae) According to the agreed clauses, the Italian administration directly deposits about 4,700 euros monthly (some USD 5,260) into each doctor's bank account. Despite this deposit, the CSMC imposes a parallel arrangement that obliges the doctor to keep only 1,200 euros a month (around USD 1,340), an amount that during the first semester of stay was reduced to a thousand euros (approximately USD 1,120). The appropriation of income is intensified in night shifts and overtime. The Cuban intermediary applies a fictitious deduction attributed to local tax burdens and then demands half of the remaining balance. Breakdown of the withholding scheme applied to doctors in Calabria, where most of the public remuneration transferred by the Italian authorities ends up in the hands of the Havana intermediary company (Courtesy: Cuban Observatory of Human Rights). Through this scheme, the personnel retain only 28.5% of the additional compensation. Against the official arguments from Havana that claim these revenues finance services on the island, the statistics of the National Office of Statistics and Information refute that version: in a five-year period, more than 25 billion dollars came in from professional services and only 434 million were reinvested in the Cuban healthcare sector. The collection system suffered a fracture when the United States Department of the Treasury imposed punitive measures against the CSMC. As a result of these banking provisions, Italian financial entities began to reject or block the transfers that the physicians sent to the state company. Faced with this scenario, the mission's chiefs instructed members to keep the withheld money in their accounts while awaiting new collection channels, which triggered accelerated purchases by those affected to spend the balance before a possible cash seizure. At the same time, at least 63 physicians requested direct contracts in order to practice independently. During the event, lawyer Marilyn Fernández recalled that the legal framework of the European Union imposes on receiving countries the obligation to prevent forced labor and monitor labor abuses within their jurisdiction, a responsibility that is not annulled by the existence of bilateral health cooperation agreements.