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Independent Media reports that the Department of Health has defended the R83 million a year spent on the Cuban medical brigades that have been in the country since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic last year.
In a written response to parliamentary questions, acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane said the 119-strong medical brigade had specialised expertise that was limited in the country. Democratic Alliance (DA) MPs had asked various ministers whether their departments had concluded any work exchange and/or employment agreements with Cuba from 2010-11 to date. They had requested details on the work that each of the Cuban nationals performed and the total cost of employment, among other things. Kubayi-Ngubane said the health department had signed a government-to-government agreement that included work exchange and/or employment agreements with Cuba. She advised that a team of 119 Cuban medical experts and health professionals with experience in planning, execution and management of the public health response to the pandemic had been contracted from May 2021 to April 2022, with R83,030,688 in remuneration costs. Kubayi-Ngubane said the medical brigade performed specialised expertise services as epidemiologists, bio-statisticians, public health specialists, family physicians and health-care technology engineers, and they each had more than 10 years’ experience. She added that while those skills sets were available in SA, “these are limited in number and not equitably distributed across the country.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Mayibongwe Maqhina at Independent Media
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