Dissident neurosurgeon allowed to leave Cuba

HAVANA (Reuters) - A prominent neurosurgeon has been given permission to leave Cuba, 15 years after breaking ranks with former leader Fidel Castro over the communist-ruled island's healthcare system, authorities said on Friday.
Hilda Molina, 66, had complained publicly for years about being denied permission to leave Cuba and join her only son and grandchildren in Argentina and asked Argentine President Cristina Fernandez to intercede on her behalf last year.
In Buenos Aires, Fernandez said on Friday the Cuban government had finally issued the papers Molina needed to travel. "She has been granted a passport by the Cuban authorities and also authorization to leave the country for Argentina," Fernandez told reporters.
Molina picked up her Argentine visa at the South American nation's embassy in Havana on Friday.
"She was very emotional and grateful to the government of President Raul Castro," said Argentine diplomat Pedro Von Eyken.
He did not elaborate and it was not immediately clear when Molina would actually leave the island, where many dissidents say they are denied the right to travel abroad.
Government officials could not be reached for immediate comment.
Molina, once a Communist Party member who was elected to Cuba's parliament in 1993, had her falling out with Fidel Castro a year later when she began asserting that the government's objective of free, quality medical care for all was eroding due to Cuba's pressing need for foreign currency.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, she maintained that the government had begun catering to "medical tourists," turning Cuban healthcare into a profit-making business with disparities in quality of treatment for Cubans and foreigners.
Raul Castro took over as president on February 24, 2008, after his brother retired due to health problems.
Fidel Castro has said Molina was forced out of the government for seeking to take over the state-run International Center for Neurological Rehabilitation, which she once ran.
But in the prologue to a book in June last year, he also said her case provided "excellent material for imperialist blackmail against Cuba."
Cuban authorities consider dissidents to be mercenaries working for the United States, which has openly supported opposition to Cuba's communist-run government.
(Reporting by Esteban Israel and Karina Grazina in Buenos Aires, Editing by Tom Brown)

Source: Reuters