The Grena­da gov­ern­ment has an­nounced what it termed “im­por­tant changes” to the Cuban Work­ers Pro­gramme fol­low­ing a re­quest made by the Unit­ed States to re­view the pro­gramme.

A state­ment from the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs said that it is “im­por­tant changes to strength­en the ad­min­is­tra­tion and over­sight of the Cuban Work­ers Pro­gramme have been im­ple­ment­ed, fol­low­ing high-lev­el con­sul­ta­tions be­tween Grena­di­an and Cuban of­fi­cials in Ha­vana” this month.

The state­ment said that the dis­cus­sions were led by For­eign Af­fairs, Trade and Ex­port De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter, Joseph An­dall, and in­clud­ing Health Min­is­ter, Philip Teles­ford and that “it was agreed that all Cuban pro­fes­sion­als serv­ing in Grena­da would work un­der con­di­tions equal to those of their Grena­di­an coun­ter­parts.

“The Gov­ern­ment of Grena­da ex­press­es its ap­pre­ci­a­tion to the Gov­ern­ment of Cu­ba for its co­op­er­a­tion in the mat­ter and for agree­ing to the changes. The Gov­ern­ment of Grena­da ac­knowl­edges the role of the Unit­ed States in rais­ing the mat­ter with Grena­da.”

The Dick­on Mitchell gov­ern­ment said that the Cuban Work­ers Pro­gramme has pro­vid­ed sig­nif­i­cant sup­port to Grena­di­ans “es­pe­cial­ly in the de­liv­ery of health­care.

“The Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Grena­da are grate­ful for this sup­port. At the same time, the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to strength­en na­tion­al health ca­pac­i­ty through ex­pand­ed train­ing, schol­ar­ships, and in­cen­tives to in­crease the cadre of Grena­di­an pro­fes­sion­als serv­ing in the health sys­tem,” the state­ment said.

In Au­gust, the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State, an­nounced that it had tak­en steps to im­pose visa re­stric­tions on African, Cuban, and Grena­di­an gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, and their fam­i­ly mem­bers, for their com­plic­i­ty in the Cuban regime’s med­ical mis­sion scheme in which med­ical pro­fes­sion­als are ‘rent­ed’ by oth­er coun­tries at high prices and most of the rev­enue is kept by the Cuban au­thor­i­ties.

Wash­ing­ton claimed that this scheme en­rich­es the cor­rupt Cuban regime while de­priv­ing the Cuban peo­ple of es­sen­tial med­ical care, a po­si­tion which has been strong­ly de­nied by the Caribbean.

The Unit­ed States said that it would con­tin­ue to en­gage gov­ern­ments, ”and will take ac­tion as need­ed, to bring an end to such forced labour,” urg­ing gov­ern­ments “to pay the doc­tors di­rect­ly for their ser­vices, not the regime slave mas­ters.

“The Unit­ed States aims to sup­port the Cuban peo­ple in their pur­suit of free­dom and dig­ni­ty and pro­mote ac­count­abil­i­ty for those who per­pet­u­ate their ex­ploita­tion. We call on all na­tions that sup­port democ­ra­cy and hu­man rights to join us in this ef­fort to con­front the Cuban regime’s abus­es and stand with the Cuban peo­ple.”

Wash­ing­ton has since im­posed a visa re­stric­tion on Fi­nance Min­is­ter, Den­nis Corn­wall, with St. George’s say­ing that both gov­ern­ments reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to the long-stand­ing re­la­tion­ship and agreed to con­tin­ue us­ing diplo­mat­ic chan­nels to ad­dress mat­ters of con­cern.