Distributed by The Cuba Free Press Project.

Havana, November 5, 1997, Cuba Free Press

Failures of the Cuban Health System. By Orlando Bordon Galvez, Cuba Free Press.

Last October 27th, waiting for an ambulance at the Communal Policlinic in San Antonio de las Vegas for over five hours, became a very painful experience for Noelia Perez, a resident of this Havana neighborhood, who was obviously under duress due to an intestinal obstruction.

The ambulance was promptly requested from the health directorate which controls the area of San Jose de las Lajas municipality, and the trip was delayed due to the shortage of ambulances in service, as well as, the lack of concern of those who could have made other State owned transportation available. Noelia was in need of urgent hospitalization and this unacceptable wait led to expressions of impotence and outrage by Maria Lubones.

Maria, in the presence of the president of the area chief, Joaquin Mancilla, and the police chief, Lieutenant Baracoa, threatened to inform of the delay and of other shortcomings at the level of the central offices in San Antonio, two days later.

Undoubtedly, this incident was not an exception within the "perfect system", and proof of this is that some four days earlier, the same lengthy wait had been experienced by Eulalia Munoz.

In a complex medical condition, and without the appropriate medical resources to help her, those present at the Policlinic became alarmed when Eulalia went into convulsions and defecated while unconscious. The information available made the anguish of those present, and their inability to help her, obvious. It must be pointed out that while both of these incidents were taking place, the press in Havana praised the Cuban public health system, pointing out that the death rate at infancy was a mere 5,8 per 1000 live births.

This populist irony, not at all harmless, seems to completely ignore the numerous times that Cuban lives are placed in danger due to the failures of the public health system after the sheltered offered by the mother/chile program available for the first year after birth.

Noelia, for example, had an urgent need to be hospitalized due merely because the basic medicines, needed to control her condition, are not available. Common Cubans faced with so many tangible shortcomings in the health system, know full well that the infant mortality rate issue is nothing more than a Troyan Horse, brandished for political goals linked to holding on to power.

The people also know full well of the propaganda which proclaims Cuba as a medical powerhouse. A symbol to confuse the naive, lie to the dreamers, and manipulate the useful fools who become echoes of these absurd myths full of insidious lies, often shamefully repeated.

By Orlando Bordón Gálvez, Cuba Free Press.