Calabria keeps Cuban doctors despite US pressure

Calabria, Italy's southernmost mainland region, is the rare European outpost where Cuba maintains a substantial medical presence. More than 200 Cuban doctors work in the region's remote hospitals, easing extreme staff shortages and reducing emergency-room wait times in a region that has struggled to attract Italian physicians. The arrangement has drawn the ire of the United States, which views Cuba's overseas medical missions as exploitative labour schemes and has pressed European allies to abandon them.

Washington's campaign against Cuban medical diplomacy reflects a broader push to isolate Havana. The US State Department has long argued that Cuba's health-worker programs—deployed across Africa, Latin America, and now southern Europe—serve as a front for exporting Cuban influence while extracting revenue from developing nations. Yet Calabria's governor has resisted American pressure, citing the region's acute medical crisis. According to the Associated Press, losing the Cuban doctors would force the closure of hospitals in towns like Polistena that have no other way to staff their wards.