QatzelOk wrote:In all third world countries, people will do what they can to get tourist dollars.
In Cuba, there are so many doctors, that the person driving the tourist might also be a qualified doctor. In other third world countries, this won't happen because there is a terrible shortage of doctors. It's not because in other third-world countries everyone is too rich to care about tourism. There just aren't any extra doctors lying around.
Having extra doctors is EXCELLENT. Only communist countries with revolutionary medecine can accomplish this. Rich countries only have a lot of doctors because they steal them from third world countries that really, really need them.
Your "point" is actually a really good one regarding how poor late-stage capitalism is at creating doctors and teachers. All it can care about is money, so it tends to steal all the social cash and give it to banksters instead.
Dude. What you are talking is ridiculous. You clearly have very limited information about Cuba and that's OK because most of the world do, it has been designed on
purpose in this way. But please don't make the mistake of simply repeating whatever propaganda you hear. I know it is easy to see our shortcomings, certainly rampant capitalism can expose all of our moral defects but what you are defending does not exist and does not deserve defense.
The reason why Cuba has a lot of doctors is because the goverment designed as such in a wimp without caring for the consequences of doing such idiocy. First of all, the medicine career in Cuba is not particularly competitive. Until very recently, when you got out of 9th grade and are in the process of moving into higher education you are presented with 2 major pathways. One pathway is traditional highschool and the second pathway includes technological school and vocational schools. Technological and vocational school were more desirable (yes, shocker) because they did not require you to go to a boarding school in the middle of the countryside and work under the sun picking up potato for half of the day in sub-human conditions. Of those two, technological schools were the most desirables as they could lead to more profitable jobs with computer systems, telecommunications, etc and could give you access to some perks (internet, communication with family outside of cuba, etc) not to mention the main perk which was to not go to the countryside. Vocational schools also included industry of tourism and commerce which was also slightly more lucrative and you could get some tips in dollars and as such in high demand.
As a result those that went into 10-11-12th grade, for the most part had the lower grades and educational achievement. After 12 grade you choose again. Nobody is particularly happy to choose anything at this point given that nothing actually pays for shit. The main driving force for people to go into careers at this point is the looming threat of military service. You'd see, by the time you finish high-school you are usually 16-18 years, and once you become 18 you have to go to compulsatory military service. I do not remember how long it is but ~2 years if I remember correctly. This, however, can be deferred for a while depending on the career you choose and your gender. I honestly do not remember the minutia but the whole point is, many students that otherwise would simply drop from higher education (after all, it does not really change your income if you are a doctor or a janitor by too much) end up doing so to avoid this.
My mother attended medical school in the late 1970's and early 1980's. She always tells the story that she abhorred medicine (I believe her, she cannot put a shot, do a pelvic/rectal examination, put stiches or even look at blood) but she chose that career because it was the one with the LOWEST required entry-level grades so that my dad (her boyfriend at that time) could have a chance at getting the same career and they could continue going to the same school. How fking ridiculous it is that medicine, one of the most respected and desired careers in most other countries, one of the hardest and more demanding, had one of the lowest entry-level grade requirements (fun fact, my dad had such bad grades that he could not even get into med-school. He ended up going into tourist industry and he was by far the bread winner at my house, making 20-30 times as much as my mother LOL).
My mother was trained by doctors that were in part trained before the revolution or very soon after so back then the education was actually pretty good. Even today, after 15+ years out of practice she can manage to lecture me on a few topics and im fresh out of school
. That being said, the last few batches of doctors that were coming out during the last few years before I moved here were not really very well educated. In fact, I'd say the ones I met were straight ignorant and not just medicine but everything. Had no knowledge about ancient civilizations, history, one did not even know paris was the capital of france. This is not the legacy of an educational/medical powerhouse, this is the remnants of what remains from one... one that existed 50+ years ago prior to Fidel ruining everything.
So you'd see, this is way more complicated than just extrapolating our "Western world" lenses into Cuban problems. What you see is nothing but a mirage because Cuba's problems are not the same as our problems. What you see in Cuba is totally abnormal because it was designed to be like that.
If you like Cuba so much, I dare you to get rid of your earthly possessions and go live there
LIKE A CUBAN. Not cushy retirement.