Portugal

Executive summary

Cuba's medical mission to Portugal began in 2009 and has effectively wound down to zero active personnel by 2020, having peaked at 76 collaborators in 2015 before contracting to seven localities; a 2023 proposal to recruit 300 doctors was abandoned amid concerns Lisbon could not guarantee fair treatment or retention. No major statistical discrepancies emerge, though earning gaps are stark—doctors received as little as 300 euros monthly while Portugal paid Cuba nearly 6,000 euros per physician. Labour violations are documented through Cuba's own coercive legal framework (Decree 306, Migration Law restrictions, forced-labour ethics code) and wage withholding schemes, though no direct evidence of political mobilization or propaganda appears beyond university recruitment drives. Behind every euro paid to Havana lay a fraction reaching the hands that healed. Silence over salaries became the loudest testimony.

Mission data

Research profile