José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera

Cuban doctor and politician. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba since 1975.

He is a Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power since the emergence of the legislative body in 1976. He was reelected as Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power on April 18, 2018 in the Constitutive Session of the IX Legislature, held at the Palace of Conventions in Havana.

Fighter and doctor in the II Frank País Eastern Front. He held positions related to Public Health and the FAR. He was first secretary of the PCC in Santiago de Cuba, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee, ambassador to the USSR. He oversaw the Ideological and International Relations departments of the Central Committee of the PCC. He was a member of the Political Bureau and Minister of Health. He is a founder of the PCC and member of its Central Committee.

Throughout his life he has held, among others, the following responsibilities: Executive General Director and Vice Minister of Hygiene and Epidemiology of the Ministry of Public Health; Chief of Medical Services and Chief of Military Construction in the Revolutionary Armed Forces; First Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Party in Santiago de Cuba and Member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee; Ambassador of Cuba to the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and to Russia. He was also Minister of Public Health until July 2010, when he was relieved of his duties at the proposal of President Raúl Castro[1].

Subsequently he was Chief of the Department of International Relations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and member of its Secretariat until the Eighth Congress of the Party in April 2021.

He studied medicine by vocation. When the coup d'état occurred on March 10, he was already a student at the University of Havana and joined the clandestine struggle against the tyranny. He graduated in 1956.

In 1957 he worked in the Gálvez Ward of the "General Calixto García" University Hospital, whose chief was a prestigious orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Julio Martínez Páez. That ward had become, during the dictatorship, a rebel stronghold. Among the rebels were Professor Martínez Páez and young people committed to the destiny of their Homeland. Among the latter was Balaguer, who for his revolutionary activities was arrested and imprisoned.

That young doctor who in 1958 joined as a fighter to the Rebel Army in the II Frank País Eastern Front.

Upon the triumph of the Revolution, with his rank of Commander of the Rebel Army, he assumed various responsibilities: Executive General Director and Vice Minister of Hygiene and Epidemiology of the Ministry of Public Health; Chief of Medical Services and Military Construction in the Revolutionary Armed Forces; First Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Party in Santiago de Cuba; Delegate of the Political Bureau in Granma Province; Ambassador of Cuba to the former USSR and Minister of Public Health until 2010, when he was relieved of his duties.

He is a founder of the PCC and member of its Central Committee since 1975 and Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power since 1976.

Currently he is Chief of the Department of International Relations of the Central Committee of the PCC and member of its Secretariat. And he continues to be the man he has always been, educated and respectful, disciplined and responsible, simple and modest. An example of social and professional ethics!.