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Belize ends its medical deal with Cuba and will hire the health workers one by one
The government of Belize announced it will not renew the medical brigade agreement in place since 1990 and that its health ministry will sign individual contracts with each Cuban professional so they can keep working in the country, according to the Belizean official statement and 14ymedio.
The statement from Belize's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, issued in Belmopan, announces that the governments of Belize and Cuba will not renew the agreement under which the Cuban Medical Brigade has served in the country since 1990 and that, to ensure continuity of services, the Ministry of Health and Wellness will sign “individual contracts of employment with each Cuban professional” allowing them to remain and work in Belize.
The decision comes after months of negotiations with Havana and under pressure from the United States, which considers Cuba's official medical mission programmes a form of forced labour, according to 14ymedio. Belizean prime minister John Briceño said on May 27 that he was looking for a formula that would let Washington accept that the health workers “are here working of their own free will,” and maintained that Belize was already paying the doctors directly rather than the Cuban government.
The brigade had some 92 health professionals, including 45 doctors, posted to hospitals and rural communities, as confirmed by foreign minister Francis Fonseca in April and health minister Kevin Bernard in September. There are specialists at the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, the country's main facility, and Bernard mentioned nephrologists, paediatricians, psychiatrists, gynaecologists and neonatal care specialists, as well as nurses in outlying communities.
The dependence is especially high in Toledo, one of the southernmost districts: there, 8 of the 16 doctors are Cuban. “We already have trouble finding doctors, or even local professionals, willing to work in the south and in those communities,” Bernard warned in September. The Belizean government was also looking at hiring staff from the Philippines, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The announcement does not make clear when the new contracts will be signed or what the pay terms will be, according to 14ymedio.
The formula resembles Jamaica's, which suspended its agreement in March after failing to agree new terms. Havana then withdrew most of its professionals and Kingston began taking them back on individual contracts: in October Jamaican health minister Christopher Tufton confirmed that 157 health workers had returned that way, joining another 43 who stayed, 200 in total against roughly 300 before the break. In Guyana, the authorities said Cuba withdrew its brigades in February, and Antigua and Barbuda announced it was replacing 72 Cuban doctors with staff from Ghana.
Sources: 14ymedio · Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Belice
Data updated: 2026-11-04T16:15:00.000Z