On Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced the U.S. and Cuba will officially reopen their respective embassies by the end of July, ending a nearly six-decade impasse that began at the height of the Cold War.
“We don’t have to be imprisoned by the past,” the president told reporters. “When something isn’t working, we can — and will — change.”
Though the United States’ economic embargo against Cuba remains in place, and can only be lifted by an act of Congress, the diplomatic normalization could have a major impact on medical care in both countries. Dr. Roberto Morales, Cuba’s Minister of Public Health, happened to be in Washington, D.C. on the day of the announcement, and told reporters,in Spanish: “We believe in sharing what we have, and this normalization will allow us to exchange experiences and knowledge and construct projects that respond to problems we have in both countries.” He added, “It will also help people better understand the reality of the Cuban health system, which is free, accessible, regional, and doesn’t discriminate against anyone, no matter the color of their skin or the political beliefs.”
Morales said when the Cuban revolution overthrew Fulgencio Batista’s regime in 1959, most of the island’s doctors fled to the United States. But since then, the government has significantly invested in providing free medical school, free health care, and free medication to the island. Today, Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the U.S. and about an equal life expectancy. The country also has the lowest HIV rate in the Americas, according to the United Nations, and just this week became the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mothers to children.
Today, Cuba collaborates with 60 other countries in the field of health, and more than 25,000 Cuban doctors are currently serving abroad — taking a lead role in everything from Africa’s Ebola crisis to Haiti’s Cholera outbreak.
Still, Morales said, the U.S. embargo has limited their public health efforts. “The effect of the economic, financial and commercial embargo against Cuba has cost us more than 60 billion dollars. What we can’t calculate is the pain and suffering it has also caused. We hope that it can be lifted so that we can acquire the technologies that we currently can’t buy, that the Cuban people really need.”
An Amnesty International investigation found that Cuba’s inability to import some supplements and vitamins has contributed to “a high prevalence of iron deficiency anemia” in the population, while access to breast cancer drugs and other medicine has been severely restricted.
Because the embargo bans the export of medicines and medical equipment from the U.S. or any U.S.-owned company to Cuba, the government has had to learn how to produce the majority of their vaccines and medications domestically. This includes major medical breakthroughs — like an affordable lung cancer vaccine — that the U.S. is already scrambling to get its hands on.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who is pushing bills in Congress to end the embargo, wrote after a recent trip to Cuba about seeing a demonstration for a treatment for diabetic food ulcers.
“While I was in Cuba, I saw a treatment that reduces the risk of amputation by more than 70 percent, and is being used in some 20 countries,” she said. “Should we not be seeking all available treatments for this horrible condition? Let’s renew relations with Cuba and open the door for new, improved and more effective medical treatments. In addition, we should be looking to Cuban medical institutions to help train our nation’s doctors. Cuba’s doctors are some of the best in the world and its medical training institutions are among the world’s finest.”
Obama called directly on Congress Wednesday to vote to end the embargo that bars most exports of food, medicine and other goods to Cuba.
“It’s long past time for us to realize that this approach doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked for 50 years,” he said. “It shuts America out of Cuba’s future, and it only makes life worse for the Cuban people.”
Congress shows no signs of following the president’s wishes.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) released a statement saying “relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until Cubans enjoy freedom” — though he did not define his criteria for freedom. Over in the Senate, Ted Cruz (R-TX) not only vowed to maintain the embargo, he released a statement promising to block any nominee Obama sends to the Senate to be ambassador to Cuba, and vote against any funding for the re-opened embassy in Havana. And, Marco Rubio (R-FL), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, said too will oppose the confirmation of an Ambassador until the Cuban government agrees to settle legal claims regarding property confiscated from U.S. corporations half a century ago, among other demands.