I am sure that among those who watched Cuban doctors leave Bolivia, from Santa Cruz airport - despite the police, military officers, and "new authorities" on hand - there were those whose conscience ached, aware that hope was departing.
It is hard to imagine that, within Bolivia’s population of just over 11 million inhabitants, a single family might not have had some contact with these professionals, at least a greeting from those who, in addition to their medical knowledge, have the ethical values and moral integrity, so necessary to practicing a profession like this.
The fact that some usurpers of power in the Andean nation have followed the script written in the U.S. embassy, in an attempt to discredit our doctors, is not news. A similar text was delivered in Brazil when Jair Bolsonaro took office, and similar efforts were made in Ecuador.
Those who were obliged to leave a Bolivia they made their own, where they lived alongside families that considered them children or siblings, who learned a few words in indigenous languages, feel the honor of have done their duty and the pain of leaving patients to fate under the most rapacious neoliberalism.
I remember very well when doctors, nurses, health technicians, and other collaborators were forced to leave a Brazil that needed them so much, and still needs them.
We cannot forget the poorest Brazilian families, who learned that Cuban doctors were forced to end their collaboration, went to their farewells, crying, saddened, and bearing tokens of their appreciation, however modest, but with the human value that is only recognized by those who hold it.
What happened in Brazil after the departure of Cuban collaborators? It is sad, it should not be so, but witnesses report that, in many places, no other doctor has arrived to care for patients who are ill.
Children abandoned to fate, totally neglected elders, geographical distances that were only traveled by those who feel the pain of other human beings.
What is happening in our beloved Bolivia is similar to the situation in Brazil. Indigenous communities will now be deprived of health care, when for years they welcomed in their midst the greatest treasure: solidarity.
Returning Cubans arrived home with their own share of pain and, if possible, will attempt to communicate with the families that welcomed them as children, or to prescribe, by some means, medication necessary to preserve health.
It is sad, I repeat, but it is inconceivable that there are human beings who choose evil, terror, selfishness, rather than recognize solidarity as part of life.
Now, in the sister nation of Bolivia, a scourge is being spread by those who choose to leave their fellow citizens without protection, and allow them to be massacred by military authorities, who remained complicity silent during the coup, hiding in their barracks to give free reign to betrayal.
Sooner or later it will be these abandoned peoples, whose right to health is being trampled, who will judge those who deny it.
The Bolivian people will be responsible for making good prevail over evil. It is this people, now left without medical attention, poor families, indigenous people, campesinos, workers, who for years had the supportive care of medical professionals from Cuba, where, additionally, hundreds of Bolivian doctors have been trained, liked tens of thousands from around the world.
I am sure that hope will return to Bolivia.
