SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- MEXICO CITY, Mexico.- Ilsa Ramos, wife of the political prisoner Yasmany González Valdéssuffers from the economic, social and educational crisis that is plaguing Cuba, where its children do not have the minimum conditions to deal with their illnesses and where life becomes increasingly more expensive.
Interviewed by CubaNetRamos, too oppositionshared that she is the mother of a 17-year-old teenager and a 14-year-old who suffers from autism with mental retardation. The latter, he specified, has fits of anger and becomes aggressive.
When the crisis breaks out, he hits his mother and throws her to the floor. Without medications to control his condition, since these are only available at high prices on the black market, he had to go to the hospital emergency to treat him but the situation there was deplorable.
At the Juan Manuel Márquez children’s hospital, where he goes after waiting for his son’s seizures to pass, they inject his son with medications to sedate him but they have even tied him up when he comes to his senses and returns to his aggressive state.
―What has been your experience in the hospital?
―The doctor once told me that when he got like that, I should take a sheet, cut it into four, and tie him up. I think that is a horror. For me that is horrible. In the psychiatric ward, everything is dark, with a tremendous lack of ventilation. They tie them there, they tie them. Their technique is immobilization, which is a horrible thing. I would never allow that to be done to my son.
I have never wanted to admit him there because I have a friend whose son was like this, just like my son, they admitted him and when he came out, he came out worse. I have no good experience regarding psychiatry here.
―How difficult is it to get medicines?
-There are no medications. My son takes three, of which there are none. Take carbamazepine, which is not available, aloperidol, levopromazine, which is not available either. And for the road stability reaction, take Benadrylin, which is also not available. My son was left without a psychiatrist, because the psychiatrist left for the United States. They sent me to someone in Central Havana who told me that I had to go look for the medical records in Cerro. I have not gone there because it is very difficult for me. And for what? There is no one to look for the card and the aloperidol. At the moment, he is without a psychiatrist.
―And the school?
-He has a school that is horrible. I didn’t send him last year because he spent the entire year sick. But they also don’t teach him anything. They have him lying there, I have seen him, sitting there doing nothing. He comes with a broken backpack because they don’t give him supervision and when they give him the backpack, he destroys it.
He doesn’t have a teacher because everyone has left. They have, I think for the entire school, two teachers.
Now, in addition, he has an infection in his penis due to humidity, apparently from not drying himself properly. I took him to the doctor and they told me that it was an infection from not washing him well there and I had to wash him with boiled water. They sent him the triple antibiotic or others that exist and he had to buy an ointment for a thousand pesos.
―Tell us about your relationship with Yasmany
―I met him in 2021, before or after July 11. We start a friendship very strong and at the end of that year, when I ended the relationship with the father of my children after 15 years, I started with Yasmany and we got married. I greatly admired his ideals and I felt good about him. He was anti-communist, just like me, and I felt very good about him. He was very good with my son, especially the autistic one. The father didn’t really take care of him but Yasmany did, even during his crises.
―How have you faced Yasmany’s political imprisonment?
―Yasmany is imprisoned in 2023 for putting up posters against the dictatorship, which said “I do not vote in dictatorship.” When there was the “I do vote” campaign, he put it up and then someone ratted him out.
They took him to Villa Marista, and threatened him that if he did not confess, I would go to prison in Villa Marista as well.
Then he confessed and they accused him of enemy propaganda, against the constitutional order. They tried him and the crime was 3 to 10 years and they gave him four, he has already been one and a half.
The visits were every 21 days and now they are every 15 because there is no food in the package. They need so many things. Cuba is a horror.
―What expectations do you have in this country?
“There is nothing here.” My son does not have a workshop where he can interact with others. He has nothing. I always blame this dictatorship, that these children are like this. Why don’t they have anything? What he needs is to be cared for by good professionals, with therapies, but in Cuba it is for pleasure.
This is general for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are an opponent or if you are not. They are all in the same situation. They have nowhere to go. I don’t think the political position affects it. The only thing I do is report truthfully.
―Any message you want to leave?
―I want the world to know the injustice that exists in this country. Because my wife is not a criminal because of a little sign, that is a crime invented by them. For the crime, it is enemy propaganda, they gave him 4 years in prison, which is for people who are over 30 years old for crimes, in the combined. That’s where the two murderers are.
My husband was denied visitation benefits. And the educator told me that it was because of the type of crime he had, an attack against State Security. I always give the example that Fidel Castro put up posters and did everything and my husband is a criminal because of a simple poster.
I also want to denounce the situation of the children. Not only mine, all the children in Cuba go hungry because there is no food here. MSME prices are disrespectful. They don’t have milk, they don’t have a toy, they don’t have a recreational place, they don’t have anything.
And I want the world to know, that children’s rights, people’s rights, are violated here. There is no freedom of expression and the elderly go around selling straws to earn something.
Every time I can I demonstrate against them. I know I’m not going to overthrow the dictatorship but at least I’m doing my bit.
