Cuban physicians will once again have to ask for government permits, if they plan to travel abroad. The island nation's communist government has also reinstated restrictions on doctors planning to work in the United States and other countries.

Since the regime eased exit controls in 2013, the Caribbean nation's health services have been "seriously affected," authorities noted as they explained the move, according to the BBC. Havana also slammed Washington for a U.S. government program that encourages physicians to resettle.

Officials claimed that the 2006 Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, which allows Cuban medical personnel who study or work in a third country to enter the United States, as an attempt to entice such professionals to permanently leave their homeland.

"It must be recalled that the United States government has historically used its migratory policy as a weapon against the Revolution, and has, for political reasons, encouraged emigration from Cuba," a government statement alleged, published in the newspaper Granma, the mouthpiece of Cuba's ruling Communist Party.

In order to leave Cuba, medical professionals need special permission if the purpose of their travel is personal, Reuters reported. Similar restrictions had already been in place before 2013, when they were lifted as the regime revised its general immigration law, giving average Cubans wider freedom to leave.

Meanwhile, the Cuban government also admitted in the statement that the trend of Cubans using all possible means to escape their homeland has recently been exacerbated due to rumors arising after the rapprochement between Washington and Havana.

"The increase in the number of Cuban citizens who, after having legally traveled abroad, try to reach U.S. territory ... is linked to totally unfounded speculations that, as a result of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, the migratory privileges Cuban enjoy in said country could be eliminated," the statement contended.