Cuba ended 2025 with 71,635 doctors, 3,729 fewer than a year earlier

Cuba ended 2025 with 71,635 registered doctors, 3,729 fewer than at the end of 2024, when the total was 75,364. The annual decline equals about 4.9 percent, according to the Public Health Ministry's 2025 Health Statistical Yearbook. The balance extends a downward trend continuing for four consecutive years in official statistics.

Comparison with 2021 shows an accumulated reduction of 34,496 doctors in four years. At that time, the registry counted 106,131, compared with 71,635 at the end of 2025. The difference is a 32.5 percent decline from the 2021 figure and shows the variation beyond one year's change.

The 2021 figure was the highest in the yearbook series, while the 2025 total is the lowest since 2006, according to published data. The latest balance therefore not only declines from the prior year but also places the number of doctors below levels recorded for nearly two decades.

The reduction also reaches the broader National Health System workforce. That staff ended 2025 with 365,515 people, down from 390,279 in 2024. The difference is 24,764 workers, equivalent to a 6.3 percent one-year decline, according to sector statistics.

From 2023 through 2025, the system's total staff fell by 55,605 workers. The four-year comparison from 2021 through 2025 shows contraction of about 145,300 people in the general workforce. Those figures concern all health-system personnel and should not be confused with the specific doctor count described earlier.

The doctor registry appears in table 102 of the 2025 Health Statistical Yearbook, based on the Health Workers Registry maintained by the ministry's Human Capital Directorate. That documentary reference identifies the basis used to count doctors. Total-workforce figures, by contrast, include all National Health System personnel, a broader measure than the physician category.