Health cooperation

US pressure on Cuban doctors in Calabria: Region defies blockade and seeks new white coats

The American administration is calling for an end to the programme that has brought more than 400 health workers from the Caribbean island to the region in the last two years. Occhiuto meets Hammer and raises the bar: 600 more are needed, of any nationality

by Donata Marrazzo

23 February 2026

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Trump's hard line on Cuba, repercussions in Calabria
Occhiuto meets Mike Hammer
A geopolitical tussle
"They call us brothers"
In Calabria dreaming of Cuba
Arbitrary holdings?
Who stays, who runs away

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

In Polistena, Cuban doctors are a small, well-integrated community: in the last two years, more than twenty of them, including emergency specialists, surgeons, cardiologists, haematologists, radiologists, gynaecologists, and orthopaedists, have ensured the functioning of Santa Maria degli Ungheresi, the hospital to which the entire Gioia Tauro Plain turns. More than 180,000 users.

Trump's hard line on Cuba, repercussions in Calabria

For this reason, the diplomatic dispute raised by America was there and then a cold shower: Trump's hard line against Cuba has repercussions as far as Italia, indeed as far as Calabria, with the demand that the employment of Caribbean white coats be stopped.

Diplomat Mike Hammer, US Chargé d'Affaires in Cuba, met with Region President Roberto Occhiuto, accompanied by Terrence Flynn, US Consul General in Naples.

Because, while Hammer announces a possible peaceful transition between Washington and Havana, he is working on the closure of the health cooperation programme in Calabria. Against the governor's wishes, however. Who indeed, while continuing to dialogue with the United States, announces that 600 more Cuban doctors are needed. Cubans, but also Americans if necessary.

Occhiuto meets Mike Hammer

"I told Hammer that the Cuban doctors who are making it possible to keep Calabria's hospitals and emergency rooms open are still a necessity for our Region," Occhiuto said. "My top priority is to ensure the right to care for the citizens of Calabria, who already have a health system in a very difficult condition. And given that more white coats are needed to keep the Calabrian health system alive, Occhiuto now probes new possibilities: "Due to a fruitful collaboration established with the US State Department and the American consulate, we have decided to verify an alternative way of recruiting additional doctors, and we have also done so through the publication of an expression of interest addressed to all EU and non-EU white coats who want to come and work in Calabria. I have explained to Hammer that foreign doctors are absolutely necessary, but that our Region is willing to welcome them all, EU, non-EU, Cuban doctors who are not bound to the existing mission, who independently want to come and work in Calabria, and is willing to give them all the logistical and economic support that we have already guaranteed to the Cuban doctors who have been living with us for a few years now'.

A geopolitical tussle

Thus, Calabria ends up at the centre of an international querelle. But which still has the flavour of a geopolitical tussle, far removed from the reality of Calabrian hospitals, which without the Cubans would have already closed, and from an everyday life that, if anything, brings Cubans and locals together: 'Dottò, voliti u viniti o mari cu nnui? Ca ndi faci piaciri'. This is how the Polistenese on Sundays invite the health workers who are not on duty in the wards to the sea. And more or less the same thing happens during the Christmas holidays or for a birthday. In case of a chance encounter on via Trieste, which is the town's main street, the doctors also dispense advice in the street.

"They call us brothers"

'A very strong relationship has been created between us and them, we have the same sense of closeness, the same altruism, we are so much alike. They call us brothers,' explains Francesco Trimarchi, vice-president of the Committee for the Protection of Public Health, which recently fought against the hospital's closure due to the serious shortage of doctors: thanks to sit-ins to the bitter end and the proposal of FI deputy Francesco Cannizzaro, the committee obtained the approval of an amendment to the 'milleproroghe' decree, the one that now guarantees continuity of care in the hospital garrisons, recalling doctors on temporary contracts until the age of 72. A buffer effect for the immediate future, which benefits the entire health service, but does not solve the problem.

In Calabria dreaming of Cuba

"As soon as they arrived here, the Cuban doctors started looking for accommodation, they wanted a house, not a hotel room,' Trimarchi recounts. 'To cover these expenses they receive a subsidy of 465 euro, which in the end almost all goes towards rent. Some have even managed to buy a small car, but mostly they now buy solar panels and refrigerators online to send to Cuba. They are worried about what is happening on the island. They all dream, once the mission is over, of returning to their own country'.

Arbitrary holdings?

Their monthly salary of EUR 4,700 gross, incentives apart, is paid into Italian current accounts. According to the document signed between the Region and Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos Cubanos, the institution advances each specialist EUR 1,200 as a lump-sum reimbursement, in addition to accommodation and travel expenses. For some parliamentarians, arbitrary deductions and other opacities border on exploitation. In 2022, clarifications also had to be provided to the US consulate.

Those who stay, those who run

And among the Cubans there are also those who have chosen not to go back, with all the consequences. Like Gustavo, an anaesthetist, who married a girl from Polistena, thus interrupting his mission. And so did a gynaecologist. At best, the sanction is that for eight years the two professionals will not be able to return to Cuba. Gustavo now works in a Sardinian health facility. Other colleagues, on the other hand, simply disappeared.