UWI doors open to med students in Cuba

The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, says there has been no official communication or request to accept anxious Jamaican medical students in Cuba, but it has indicated that it can accommodate those wanting to return to Jamaica.

Campus Registrar Dr Donovan Stanberry said the university’s MBBS undergraduate programme can accommodate 280 students per annum, but noted that it has remained undersubscribed over the last few years.

“In the last three [or] four years we have not gone over 200, for instance. So, theoretically, we have space,” Stanberry told The Gleaner.

“But as we keep emphasising, there are two hurdles that those students will have to cross. One is to get the transcripts and the course outlines, so that our faculty can look on them to determine where to place them in our system. Secondly, the reason some of them went away in the first instance was the fee. It’s much cheaper in Cuba,” he added.

TUITION COST

Jamaican medical students attending UWI, Mona, who are sponsored by the Government, pay J$784,901 for tuition per annum. Non-sponsored students pay US$28,000 per annum and US$140,000 over five years.

Medical school tuition for six years, excluding premedical year, amounts to US$55,000 or approximately J$8.6 million in Cuba. For years one and two, students pay US$8,500 per annum; years three and four, US$8,000 per annum; and in years five and six, they fork out US$11,000 annually.

“They would have to be able to pay the fees. We’re willing to open up our doors once they meet our matriculation requirements. We’re not partial to any student; our doors are open,” Stanberry said.

Intensified US sanctions and the loss of Venezuelan energy imports have crippled Cuba’s infrastructure, pushing the national power grid and basic public services to the brink of failure.

More than 300 Jamaican students are currently enrolled in programmes across Cuba, the majority of whom are self-funded. Of the total student body, just over 40 are recipients of the Cuba-Jamaica Bilateral Scholarship Programme, a long-standing initiative dating back to the 1950s that provides a package covering tuition, housing, and living expenses. An additional 13 students are enrolled via CubaHeal, a private organisation that coordinates medical education and healthcare services in the country.

The Sunday Gleaner this week reported that Jamaican medical students in Cuba and their parents are lobbying the Government to establish a formal transition plan into local medical programmes, to prevent their education from being derailed if conditions worsen in the Spanish-speaking country.

Fearing a repeat of what happened to Jamaican medical students who had to flee Ukraine and pursue their degrees from scratch, the students and their parents are sounding the alarm over a bureaucratic merry-go-round in Havana.

They want the Government to bypass Cuban red tape and secure transcripts for all students before a total systemic collapse leaves their pursuit of medical degrees in ruins.

“We’ve not been able to obtain a transcript and we’re basically going around in circles. [Last Thursday], another student went to one of the universities to find out about transcript and the school is basically telling them that a lawyer would have to write to the school to get the transcript. So, we don’t know what to do. We’re kind of in limbo,” said a mother, whose son has returned to Jamaica with two years left in his programme.

Stanberry said while the UWI’s Faculty of Medical Sciences has had consultations with stakeholders, official channels of communication have not been opened with the school’s administration.

“In terms of the UWI administration, as far as I know there has been no formal request. But I gather that there are informal queries and consultations,” he said.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com