HAVANA, Cuba. – Opposition activist Maritza Concepción Sarmiento denounced in interview with CubaNet the “abuse” and “denial of medical assistance” that he received in the early hours of last Monday at the Emergency Room of the “Julio Antonio Mella” Polyclinic, in the municipality Guanabacoawhere he resides.
“Cuban public health is terrible, very bad. It is not only that there is nothing in the hospitals, but that you bring the medicines and what is necessary to get them and they don’t want to do it; they mistreat you even though you go there because you have no other option,” denounced Concepción Sarmiento.
Last Monday, around midnight, the activist said she went to the aforementioned clinic to receive medical assistance due to a “severe migraine” she was suffering from, but the staff on duty refused to help her, she said.
“Since I know that there is nothing in hospitals and clinics, I brought my sterile syringe and the espasmoforte so they could inject me because of the great pain I was in, but no one wanted to give me the medicine,” he explained.
According to the activist, the doctor and nurses justified that they could not administer a medication with a syringe sterilized by the patients themselves.
“They told me no, that I should go to another clinic to see if they could give it to me,” said the interviewee.
Concepción Sarmiento described the action as a “lack of respect” to the population that not only has to deal with the lack of medicines and food, but also with mistreatment and neglect in most institutions.
“I left so insulted and shouting so many things against the supposed medical power that is this country that they sent me to look for them halfway because they took out half the contents of a vial of serum to give me the medicine. And I ask: Couldn’t they have done this from the beginning? Why do they have to shout at them to do their job, to look for options?” she asked.
Concepcion Sarmiento is a member of the Movement of Opponents for a New Republic (MONR)a non-governmental organization that promotes a change of regime on the island and a transition to democracy.
