In 2009 the University of the West Indies (UWI) Centre for Language Learning (CLL) was contracted by the Ministry of Health to provide an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course for a newly-arrived cohort of Cuban healthcare professionals. By the end of a sixty-hour course in a two-week period, these doctors and nurses were to assume duty at local hospitals and health centres throughout Trinidad & Tobago. Readiness of the Cuban medical staff for the local context implied their familiarity with local cultural norms and their ability to decipher the local standard language and creole; and to make themselves understood.
