Tariffs for surgeries, supplies and medicines only in the black stock market … This is how public health works in Cuba

The collapse of the health system in Cuba is evidenced in each hospital on the island, where most patients must resort to the black market to acquire supplies, medications and, sometimes, even paying «a rate» for medical procedures, said several Cubans interviewed by Martí News from the island.

From Victoria de las Tunas, Ana Ibis Tristá, said that the General Teaching Hospital ´ernesto Guevara de la Serna´ is totally devoid of supplies and medications to serve patients.

«Today I went to the hospital because I had consultation and notice if there is the precarious situation that there is no protection security in any hospital room. The doctor simply tells you, ‘has pneumonia, you have to take antibiotic, I cannot give you the recipe because for what, if in the pharmacy there is no antibiotic that you wear, you must take such a medicine and get it as you can,» said the interviewee.

Moisés Leonardo Rodríguez, resident of the town of Cabañas, in Mariel, Artemisa, explained that he has had problems for the treatment of cancer that afflicts him.

«Things like those that have happened to me happen, which I now discover that not everything that was done with my cancer treatment has been due, that they provided me that should not have been administered, and other inappropriate treatments, but hey, I am one more case among many,» said the opponent.

«There have been no medications for a while, I know for people, witnesses of first, first -hand sources, that there are places where there are rates, even to operate your view, there are rates to make a hip transplant … For everything there are already even rates outside the official policy,» said the university professor.

Miguel Ángel López Herrera, has just spent a month in the Provincial Hospital Agostinho Neto in the city of Guantanamo, for a prostate operation.

Before undergoing surgery, he had to acquire all medical and medicine utensils for a value of 35 thousand pesos on the black market.

The Guantanamero spoke about the terrible conditions within the public health installation: «There the first thing one perceives is the absence of medications and basic supplies in a hospital. Antibiotics, family members have to be fighting them on the street. The rooms and bathrooms are dirty.»

«After I did the operation I had to go to the hospital to make my priests and there were missing, there were no need, they told me that I had to bring them from the street,» the opponent warned.

Also from the easternmost of the provinces, but in the Baracoa municipality, Emilio Almaguer warned about the difficulties of the population to obtain a certain medicine.

«The issue of diseases, the purchase of medicines, which must be bought on the street in the informal black market because the pharmacy lacks everything. It is a disaster,» said the journalist.

In that he coincided with Dr. Roberto Serrano, who lives in Santiago de Cuba.

«Everything that has to do with public health, medicines, hygiene in hospitals, everything is a disaster. Pharmacies are totally empty (…) It is a total chaos. It really sits this country,» the doctor emphasized.

This week, in a government meeting that reviewed the State of Public Health in Cuba, the minister of this sector, José Angel Portal Miranda, referred to «the current health challenges that require new strategies and improve the quality of services.»

Among these, «the high population aging, low birth rate, the increase in risk factors for chronic non -transmissible diseases, recurrence of infections outbreaks and the increase in pregnancy in adolescence.»

The minister recognized «the complex situation of the coverage of medicines and medical supplies, the exodus of professionals and organizational problems in the health institutions» of the island.