Healthcare in Cuba
I have a good friend, a refugee from Cuba. He is a brilliant computer scientist and is absolutely blind.
A while ago I asked him about healthcare system in Cuba. Below is his letter (I only removed the names).
From: [...]
To: [...]
Subject: RE: How good is Cuban Healthcare?
... Cuban health care systems... is much worse than it ever was in USSR due to ruined economy. The first myth that the political left, and particularly the media, feeds on is that the precarious situation of the public health system is the fault of the embargo. They don't seem to realize that there is NOT embargo to medicines or medical supplies at all, there has not been for years, but they are still echoing the same lie over and over. So the Cuban government could buy any drugs or medical supplies in USA, not to mention the rest of the world. But for the left the Americans are the guilty party, no matter the reality.
In Cuba hospitals are simply in ruins. Since the 90s when I was still there, if you were admitted, be prepare to bring to the hospital everything from the bed sheets to the light bulbs for your room. And things just keep going downhill. Medicines are always in shortage, and I'm talking about aspirins and stomach anti-acid, let alone anything more advanced. [R.] and I are responsible for sending [R.]'s family in Cuba all the medicines that they need, from Advil or Tylenol for pain and fever, to vitamins for kids and the elderly, to prescription drugs. Not to mention food, which is the most basic medicine, they would be starving or malnourished if we weren't sending money from the "great Satan" to feed them. Yes you can see a doctor without paying a bill, but what good does that do to you if the doctor has no resources to cure anything.
I was born in [...] with an eye problem called glaucoma, and there has not been a good explanation as for the cause. There has not been any history of the disease in my family before or after myself. Based on my family experiences and that of other people that my parents met in Cuba in those years, it seems that it was due to malpractice during labor. But okay, mistakes are made anywhere, and in any system. Well, the partial sight I had in my first years could have been saved throughout my adulthood. But when I was seven, I had an unrelated kidney infection that sent me to the hospital. They gave me a medicine that contained belladonna and atropine, that are banned for glaucoma patience. It caused an acute reaction that led to total blindness when I was seven. Do you think that my parents were given at least an apology, a word of comfort? They had to be thankful that they had free medical attention!
Years later when I started college I needed another eye surgery for prosthetic eyes. I was treated in the best hospital for this matter in Havana. The procedure went wrong and left me with discomfort and occasional soreness in my right eye forever. It wasn't until after the operation that I found out that the procedure was experimental, it was the graduate thesis work of one of the two doctors who operated me. Bad luck, eh?
I can go on and on, with some of my own stories, and many others that I learned over the years. But I will bore you. Every time I hear somebody who says that the "free", public medicine system in Cuba is good, I can assure you something: they have never been sick in Cuba.
All the best for you and [....] and the rest of the family. Un fuerte abrazo,
--[A.]