United States-based Jamaican nurse Dr Cheryl Morgan has brought a sense of balance to the fierce debate over the Cuban medical programme which threatened to come between Jamaica and the US, two traditional allies.

Dr Morgan, in an article in Monday’s Jamaica Observer, shared her experience working closely with counterparts who came as part of the Cuban medical programme, speaking of what she herself had observed and what she was told by her counterparts.

Dr Morgan is the same nurse who recently triggered controversy after rebuffing Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton’s call for nurses overseas to give up better salaries and perks to return to their homeland to work in inferior conditions.

The information she imparted in the Observer story showed there was both a negative and a positive side to the Cuban programme which, while it might never satisfy everyone, at least provided facts upon which one can better base an educated opinion.

Since the Cuban programme was ended Jamaicans have been torn between those who insist that the Cubans were dished dirt and blamed the US Administration, as well as those who bought into the Government’s explanation that the programme was operating in breach of our labour laws.

Nostalgic supporters tend to focus only on the obvious kindness of late President Fidel Castro in sending doctors and nurses at a time when they were much-needed, as part of his friendship with late Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley in the 1970s.

The medical brigades were popular with Jamaicans, especially low-income earners who valued their service in the context of the country’s struggling health system. These people believe that Jamaica was being ungrateful in ending the programme and sending home the Cubans.

Dr Morgan disclosed a side of the Cuban programme that most Jamaicans did not know. Describing it as “a double-edged sword”, she told us that many of the nurses said they were “ripped from their families” and “sent here against their will”.

Once they landed in Jamaica, their travel documents were confiscated by one of the leaders in their group, she said, alleging that one of their numbers was “a spy” who would report any nurse who acted out of character to be recalled to Cuba for punishment.

She said it was well-known that the Cubans were paid higher salaries than the Jamaican nurses and were paid in US dollars.

“The salary was not paid directly to the nurses but was sent to Cuba and then a small percentage released to the nurses. As a result, they worked sessions (overtime) under the table,” she said.

On the other hand, Dr Morgan accused America of making an indirect attack on Jamaica and other Caribbean islands “to create a chain reaction to take down the Cuban Government” [as] “the professionals of Cuba are the country’s greatest asset and how that country builds its economy”.

It was her view that the programme was upended after a US senator criticised Prime Minister Andrew Holness for his support of Cuba which was reeling under dreadful humanitarian conditions.

She did not buy into the Government’s argument about labour law breaches, and further suggested that various governments had known of the flaws over the programme’s 50-year life but opted to work with it.

This is clearly one issue on which Jamaicans are never likely to see eye-to-eye. It’s best if the Government moves quickly to replace the programme.