Testimonies of the public health crisis in Cuba

The shortage of medicines and the crisis of health services at all levels intensify in Cuba, alert Martí news residents in several provinces of the island.

«Yes, you are going to operate with anything you have to take the gloves, you have to take everything. Right now there are no reagents for medical exams; there are many important medications that have to be in the hospitals network. It is really very hard and difficult what the Cubans are living,» warned the independent journalist Adriano Castañeda from the city of Sancti Spíritus told us.

The independent communicator Vladimir Turró, a resident in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality, in Havana, narrated the situation he faces with his sick mother.

«I am living it with the medications that my mother needs for the heart, which practically just left the hospital following a heart attack … There are no medications, there are no medications in pharmacies of any kind, medications that are necessary and essential for people to continue living. But no, there are no, and there is no answer,» he denounced.

Miguel Antonio Miranda, currently ill, tells the scenario of health services in Pinar del Río and talks about the cost of medicine in the Cuban informal market.

«Here people, the sick like me, right now that I am sick and I don’t have to take (medicines). This is the population of Pinar del Río Complete. There are no medications anywhere, you go to the polyclinic, do you feel bad and there is no juna duralgina in injection to put on you,» he said.

He added that even hospitalized patients suffer from lack of medications.

«A Dipirona tablet is 1,500 pesos in the street. I am a Mason and then the Masons are dedicated to social networks to people who want to donate medicines, to donate children in the pediatric, their parents, give those medications to their parents, because they have sick children and there are no medications,» said the activist.

Annia Zamora Carmenate, from Carlos Rojas, in Matanzas, said that the health crisis in Cuba reaches the drugs for pediatric treatments.

«I have an admitted neighbor here, a 9 -year -old girl, and had to buy among the family, neighbors and everyone … they had to look for the medication, 14 Rockyn bulbs in 14 thousand pesos, because there is nothing in the hospital,» said the opposition.

The Santiaguero doctor Roberto Serrano pointed out that the only alternative that Cubans have to acquire medications is the black bag.

«In the portfolio you have a recipe, but generally one before arriving at the office passes through the pharmacy, and there is absolutely nothing, they tell you: ‘There is nothing here.’ Then, really, here the only thing that works are those pharmacies in the black market, which are expensive, but well, thanks to them at least we can prescribe, or we can send the patients, and make them a method so that they go to look for the medications.

The situation is complicated when it deals with major health problems.

«The vast majority of people cannot get the minimum elementary for surgery, normal for hypertension treatment, diabetes. This is a shame,» Serrano concluded.