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The open letter from a specialist doctor in Santiago de Cuba to the Minister of Public Health has triggered a wave of outrage among health professionals across the island, who largely relate to his situation and warn that the issue affects thousands of regulated individuals who do not dare to report it publicly.
Dr. Alberto Tejeda Illas has been receiving rejections for his passport application for three years, despite having processed his resignation over a year and a half ago and having no contractual ties with the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP).
The government’s online application portal automatically rejected your request with the message: "The application cannot be processed, citizen regulated by Vital Category by the MINISTRY OF PUBLIC HEALTH: SPECIALIST PHYSICIAN. Please report to the agency."
In his letter, Tejeda directly questions the legality of the measure: "I am imposed restrictions by an employer —the Cuban Public Health— when I am no longer their employee and there is no employment contract linking me to that institution."
The doctor from Santiago has written twice to the Ministry without receiving a response and has accumulated three rejections through provincial mechanisms, with no one explaining whether the decisions come from the Provincial Health Directorate of Santiago de Cuba, the Ministry itself, or both entities.
Tejeda also references the new Law No. 171/2024 on Migration, published in the Official Gazette on May 5, 2026, but warns that the regulation does not resolve his situation because the authorization remains "at the will and discretion of the relevant officials."
The publication of her case sparked a massive response from colleagues who acknowledge experiencing the same situation.
"There are many doctors who are going through the same thing. This is not an isolated case," wrote one of them in the comments.
Another stated, "I resigned years ago and I'm still regulated. My life is on hold."
A third person was more emphatic: "We are not the property of the State. We are professionals and citizens with rights."
Many pointed out that the phenomenon is already discouraging young people: "Many young people no longer want to pursue certain specialties out of fear of getting stuck."
The restrictions are based on the Decree 306 of 2012, which conditions the departure from the country of professionals deemed "vital" on the approval of their employers, and were expanded in January 2023 to include medical specialists, dentists, health technicians, and nursing graduates during an internal video conference in which the director of Human Capital of MINSAP expressly requested "discretion."
The case of Doctor Tejeda is not the first to come to light. In May 2024, the surgeon José Manuel Suárez Villalobos from Camagüey, with 28 years of service, denounced the same situation asking, "How long will they punish me for being a specialist?"
The organization Prisoners Defenders documented more than 1,402 cases of Cuban healthcare professionals affected by restrictions in a report from January 2024, compared to 110 cases recorded in 2019, which demonstrates a sustained escalation of the phenomenon.
"We are hundreds or thousands in the same situation, but few dare to speak out publicly," summarized one of the doctors who commented on Dr. Tejeda's letter, capturing the true extent of a practice that the Cuban regime keeps in silence.
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