Seven months after the Jamaican government terminated its decades-long bilateral medical cooperation agreement with Cuba, 157 Cuban medical professionals have returned to the Caribbean nation to resume work under revised individual direct contracts. This cohort of returning practitioners joins 43 Cuban healthcare workers who chose to stay in Jamaica following the dissolution of the previous cross-border arrangement, bringing the total number of Cuban medical staff serving in Jamaica’s public health system back to 200, according to official health sector announcements.
Jamaica’s Health and Wellness Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton detailed the new framework in public statements, explaining that the government shifted away from the old state-to-state model to offer individual direct employment contracts to any Cuban medical professionals willing to return to work in the country. “We basically gave them an offer. We said we can’t do the arrangement as was the case, but if you return and it’s your option, your choice, we would engage you in a direct contract,” Tufton stated. He extended formal gratitude to the medical workers for agreeing to resume their posts, emphasizing that Jamaica’s strained public healthcare system relies heavily on their expertise and service to meet widespread community health needs across the island.
The original bilateral program, which supported decades of Cuban medical contributions to Jamaica’s public health sector, came to an abrupt end in March 2025 when negotiations between the two governments on updated contract terms failed to resolve longstanding disagreements. Key points of contention included the structure of salary payments, which under the old program were routed through Cuban government authorities rather than issued directly to individual workers, as well as differing protocols around the handling of medical professionals’ passports and personal documentation. Before the program’s termination, a total of 277 Cuban doctors, nurses and allied health professionals were serving across Jamaican public health facilities.
Cuban medical personnel have been a core pillar of Jamaica’s public health infrastructure for more than half a century, contributing to a range of landmark public health initiatives across the country. One of the most prominent ongoing projects is the Jamaica-Cuba Eye Care Programme, launched in 2010, which has delivered free and subsidized specialized ophthalmological services to hundreds of thousands of underserved Jamaican patients who would otherwise lack access to high-quality eye care.
With the return of the 157 medical professionals, Jamaica has restored a large share of the Cuban healthcare workforce that was lost when the original bilateral program ended, helping to ease persistent staffing shortages that have impacted public health service delivery across the island in the months following the program’s collapse.