Health, which together with education has been the emblem par excellence of Castro’s propaganda since the beginning of the Revolution, is getting worse in Cuba. The conclusion follows from the official data made public this Monday, after a meeting of workers in the sector headed by the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, Deputy Prime Minister José Luis Perdomo and the Minister of Public Health, José Angel Portal Miranda. In it, they took stock of 2022, which they referred to as a “complex and challenging” year.
Although the high officials blamed the situation, as they usually do, on the “intensification of the blockade” of the United States on the Island – which “prevented Cuba from acquiring essential medicines, equipment and supplies,” in the words of Portal Miranda, who hides that the however it does allow Buy medicines, as long as it is in advance–, they also recognized that, despite the “meritorious efforts” made by the Government, the established objectives have not been met. “We are not satisfied,” Marrero declared.
The figures speak for themselves, and one of the most eloquent is that of infant mortality. The rate is in 7.5 deaths per thousand alivemore than two and a half points above the 2020 figure, which was 4.9.
“Unfortunately, it was not possible to meet the purpose for the mortality rate in children under one year of age,” the Health Minister excused himself, listing among the reasons the low weight of newborns or the high rate of teenage pregnancies.
Without referring to any specific case, Portal Miranda recalled that “compliance with hygienic-sanitary regulations was evidenced in some centers, which conditioned the appearance of infections associated with health care and the occurrence of institutional outbreaks, with particular incidence in the maternal and child care”.
“Unfortunately, it was not possible to meet the purpose for the mortality rate in children under one year of age”
Last January, 10 premature babies died at the Diez de Octubre Gynecology Hospital in Havana, some of them with sepsis – generalized infection – for which were dismissed or reprimanded more than a dozen directors of the center.
The minister said this Monday that “hospital management presented weaknesses derived from management, organizational and resource problems” and that “we did not work with the proper adherence to the protocols.”
Marrero was harsher on this issue, acknowledging that the figures shown were “dissatisfying” for the authorities themselves, “far from what we ourselves have been able to achieve in previous times.”
Another example of the deterioration of the Cuban health system is the decrease in life expectancy on the island, from 78.07 years in the period 2014-2016 to 77.7 in 2018-2020. The Minister of Health attributed the reduction to the “high degree of population aging”, the increase in “risk factors” in “chronic non-communicable diseases” (such as hypertension) and the “rising trend in premature mortality in young adults under the age of 60 years”.
In fact, the leading cause of death on the island last year was cardiovascular disease (heart disease, with 296.5 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, and cerebrovascular disease, 102.7), followed by cancer (227.3), influenza and pneumonia (93) and accidents (51.6). The latter increased its rate by 1.6.
In the list of the first ten causes of death are also chronic lung diseases, diabetes, cirrhosis and suicide, which the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei) always calls “self-inflicted injuries”.
On the other hand, the number of queries decreased, more than 109 million, some three million less than in 2021. Last year was marked, he said, by “an increase in the reuse [o sea, reutilización] of medical devices”, which gives an idea of the deficiencies faced by the population.
Without relating it, the officials also stated that 29% of the clinics are classified “as fair and poor in relation to their constructive state”, in the words of the head of Primary Health Care of the Ministry, Ailuj Casanova Barreto.
Citizens, they recognized at the meeting, are upset. The minister also pointed out as one of the main problems the deficiencies in “the organization of services, as well as in the conduct of key processes in primary and secondary care.”
Prime Minister Marrero asserted that “nothing foresees a sudden change in the financial conditions that today limit the fundamental activities of the country”
In many places, Portal Miranda continued, “the response time to health emergencies is prolonged, which was caused, among other factors, by organizational elements and a low coefficient of technical availability of ambulances”, of which only one provided service. 39.6%”.
To all this rosary of problems, is added an “increase in problems in the technological infrastructure, with obsolescence and breakage of medical equipment.”
Jewel in the crown of the regime for six decades, the sector had 465,015 workers in 2022, of which 24,188 were sent to missions international, to a total of 58 countries.
However, the Minister of Health stressed that “the adequate preparation of all cadres” is not being achieved and that the templates are not being completed “among other causes due to the effect of migration.”
Faced with this bleak panorama, the authorities did not offer solutions beyond the usual voluntarism. Furthermore, Prime Minister Marrero asserted that “nothing foresees a sudden change in the financial conditions that today limit the fundamental activities of the country,” for which “we have to continue working intensively in search of solutions, not only to resist, but also to to continue to develop.”
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