From Cooperation to Capacitation: Cuban Medical Internationalism in the South Pacific

Abstract

This article analyses Cuba's medical missions in the South Pacific and specifically in Timor-Leste (East Timor), the largest outside of Latin America. Here, the adaptation of Cuba's low-technology and low-resourced preventive-focused medical model (based on the development of human capital) is used to highlight lessons regarding effective medical cooperation. This article finds that these lessons should be drawn from the dynamic and creative adaptations of the Cuban medical model, which are assisting South Pacific medical systems by scaling up primary care workforces to target previously underserved areas. Thus, the contribution of Cuban medical personnel, bolstered by the education of indigenous South Pacific students (trained by Cuban professors, both in Havana and locally) has developed into unique medical models for South Pacific nations. Such models of cooperation are also clearly adaptable elsewhere.