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OCDH says doctors in Calabria were paid 6.2 of 25.7 million euros

A webinar by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights presented on Friday says the Cuban state paid the 333 doctors on its mission in Italy slightly more than six million euros through March 2025, out of the 25.7 million in base salaries allocated by the Italian authorities, according to Martí Noticias.

"Cuba only paid 6.2 million euros to its doctors (22.5%)," journalist and researcher Annarella Grimal said at the webinar "Cuban Medical Missions in Calabria," organized by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), in remarks translated by Yamacoa. According to her presentation, the Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos (CSMC), which controls the hiring of these professionals in Italy, made "at least some 20 million in profit" in little more than two years.

Grimal said Italy pays 4,700 euros a month per doctor and that Cuba allows them to keep a maximum of 1,200 euros in base stipend. The report describes a "double and fraudulent taxation": a "phantom levy" of 43% on the additional hours worked, presented as an Italian tax, and a subsequent transfer of 50% under the Cuban contract, which, according to the researcher, cuts the real income from those hours to 28.5% or less.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the CSMC on July 23 over what the State Department described as "a policy or pattern of forced labor" and "a manifestation of human trafficking." Since July, according to the webinar, the doctors are still paid into their personal accounts but cannot make the mandatory transfer to the Cuban company; in early October, Italian media revealed that they were being asked to carry that money in cash when they travelled to the island on holiday.

Some 63 Cuban doctors in Calabria have expressed interest in being hired independently by the Italian authorities, and several complain that they do not receive the certificates they need to be accredited, or that they are delayed. In September, the OCDH asked the European Union to investigate that medical mission for possible human trafficking practices.

The export of professional services is the Cuban state's main source of income, with earnings of more than 4,800 million dollars a year. According to the same presentation, over the past five years doctors generated at least 25,011 million dollars, of which the government invested 434 million in health and social services, "less than 2%."

Sources: Martí Noticias

Data updated: 2026-10-24T05:30:00.000Z

OCDH says doctors in Calabria were paid 6.2 of 25.7 million euros | Yamacoa Observatory