From Hero to Zero Commitment and Poverty among Cuban Physicians

Abstract

As of 2014, approximately 50.000 Cuban health workers are serving in 65 countries all over the world. Such a huge amount of human resources, coming from a non-wealthy country, has pushed many authors to raise the question about which reasons are animating Cuba solidarity in Global Health. This article aims to explore the micro-dynamics of this phenomenon, so far disregarded from scientific literature, by analysing a Cuban physician life story and the ethnographical data collected in some Cuban clinical facilities during a three years fieldwork in la Havana.

Key words: Cuba - Medical Internationalism - Informal Work