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Prominent neurosurgeon received permission to leave Cuba
Hilda Molina, 66, had complained publicly for years about being denied permission to travel to visit her aging mother, son and grandchildren in Argentina. She asked the Argentine government to intercede on her behalf last year.

"I think this is an isolated gesture," Molina told Reuters at her home in Havana, saying she believed Cuban authorities had given her a travel permit only because of her 90-year-old mother's deteriorating health.
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Molina said she was booked on a flight out of Havana on Saturday but had only been granted permission to leave Cuba for three months. She said she wanted to live in Cuba and planned to return after looking after her mother in Argentina.

"I think things will only change in this regard when no one has to ask for permission to leave Cuba," she added, referring to how critics of Cuba's one-party state have often been denied permission to travel abroad.

"I'm always grateful to anyone who helps my family, even if they've made it suffer for 15 years," Molina added. "God did not create anything that is totally evil."

Molina, who founded Havana's prestigious International Center for Neurological Rehabilitation (Ciren), was elected to the Cuban parliament in 1993.

But she fell out with Fidel Castro and quit the party in 1994 after asserting that Cuba was eroding its principle of free, quality healthcare for all by selling medical services to foreigners to meet its pressing needs for foreign currency.

She maintained that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba began catering to "medical tourists" and turning Cuban healthcare into a profit-making business with disparities in quality of treatment between Cubans and foreigners.

Molina's mother was allowed to leave Cuba last year, three months after Raul Castro took over as president, succeeding his older brother who retired due to health problems.

Fidel Castro has said Molina was forced out of the government for seeking to take over the state-run neurology center that she once headed.

In the prologue to a book last year, he said Molina's 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 government.

(Washington Post)

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