MIAMI, United States. – Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe criticized the Cuban Public Health system for a long time, following the praise of Colombian officials to the Island in the midst of the debate about the health reform proposed by President Gustavo Petro.
Alluding to the Cuban health system, Uribe wrote on Twitter that “one thing” was “the official communist propaganda and another the miserable reality that the Cuban people live. Our mixed, supportive system, without a state monopoly, is by far better and can also be improved ”, he declared.
In a video published on his Twitter account this Thursday, Uribe questioned several medical graduates in Cuba. One of the two Cubans assured that on the island “there is a lack of resources, a lack of education, a lack of medicine (…). There everything is for those who have and the rest of the town stayed there. There is no such thing as universality that they present to us, it is not something even. We have nothing,” she added.
Earlier this month, Gustavo Petro sparked controversy highlighting the “strong preventive health systems” of Cuba, Costa Rica and Uruguay in a twitter thread in which he defended the need for a reform of the health system in his country.
The controversy was due to the inclusion of Cuba in that list. Although Petro quoted the magazine The lancetwhich ranked Cuba’s health system in 55th place and Colombia’s in 81st place, the island is experiencing an unprecedented crisis in the area of health, given the terrible state of sanitary facilities and the lack of basic medicines and inputs, part of the serious national crisis.
Petro’s tweet was not the first praise for Cuba’s health system from his government. In mid-March, the Colombian vice president, Francia Márquez, also sparked controversy after praising Health in the largest of the Antilles.
In an interview with the magazine Week, the politician said: “They can say what they want, but they cannot cover the Sun with a finger. While other countries send troops and weapons to many nations, Cuba sends doctors and they cannot hide that. A country blocked for more than 60 years sends doctors to other nations, ”she repeated.
Later, he added: “I admire the health system [cubano], which supported the professionalization, blockade and all, of thousands of citizens, including Colombians. Because more than 1,000 have been trained there and here they have not had the opportunity, in our nation and in our country. Yes, they have had it in another nation blocked (…) ”.
