During the debate on item 127 of the United Nations General Assembly’s agenda: “Global health and foreign policy”, Ambassador Yuri Ariel Gala López, Chargé d'affaires, a.i. of the Mission of Cuba to the United Nations, reaffirmed our country's position in defense of health as a human right and not a commodity, and its firm commitment to cooperation and solidarity in this area.
In his speech, he explained that, for more than six decades and with great efforts, the Cuban government has implemented a universal and free public health system based on prevention, equity, and solidarity. He noted that this has occurred despite the devastating impact of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States, whose effects on the health sector are particularly visible and painful.
He denounced that the arbitrary inclusion of our country on the list of alleged state sponsors of terrorism, and the smear campaigns promoted by the United States against our medical services, reinforce the criminal siege against Cuba and affect the health and well-being of millions of people both in our country and elsewhere.
Ambassador Gala López pointed out that global health cannot be separated from geopolitical tensions, humanitarian emergencies, climate change, or the current unfair, exclusionary, and unequal economic order. He insisted that international cooperation is essential to contribute to an effective response to global health emergencies and achieve true universal health coverage that benefits all people. He reiterated that “selfishness must be banished from international relations, and unilateral coercive measures that negatively impact the enjoyment of the right to health must be eliminated.”
The Cuban diplomat argued that countries in the South should not have to choose between paying suffocating foreign debt or financing their national health systems. More mutual support is needed to achieve resilient, universal, humanistic, and sustainable health systems that are not governed by market logic, he said.
Ambassador Gala López reiterated Cuba's support for the World Health Organization and rejected the United States' unjustified attacks against this important organization.
He also referred to the international medical cooperation that Cuba has genuinely provided under the premise of saving lives. He recalled that since 1963, more than 605,000 Cuban health workers have provided services in 165 countries, while also contributing to the training of tens of thousands of doctors from various countries in the South.
He concluded his speech by assuring that nothing and no one will prevent Cuba from continuing to be “wherever we are asked for help and wherever a human life needs it.” He reaffirmed that, in the face of the lies of the United States, we will continue to bring more solidarity and cooperation, “under the maxim of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, that to be internationalists is to pay our own debt to humanity.”
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations