KINGSTON, Jamaica (AFP) — Jamaican American actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, who is the goddaughter of former Prime Minister PJ Patterson, has joined the conversation surrounding the discontinuation of the Cuban Medical Brigade programme in Jamaica.

“Will America now send the doctors so badly needed in Jamaica?” Ralph queried on FridayX in response to a Jamaica Gleaner news report.

The question followed an announcement by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Kamina Johnson Smith that the longstanding programme would be discontinued.

She indicated that the decision had not been influenced by mounting pressure from the United States, which has repeatedly criticised the programme in which countries pay the Cuban government, which in turn pays the medical professionals a stipend.

Johnson Smith had shared the possibility of negotiating directly with the doctors and nurses in her statement.

However, the Cuban government, in its own statement on Friday, said the Jamaican government had capitulated to US pressure and has moved to withdraw its staff from the country.

It means the Jamaican healthcare system will lose over 270 medical personnel.