“Right now I can barely move with help,” said young Héctor Luis Pupo Quiala.
HAVANA, Cuba. – Héctor Luis Pupo Quiala, a young Cuban who has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for more than two decades, has been bedridden for more than a month as a result of the worsening of this degenerative disease.
Desperate for the pain and loss of mobility caused by his condition, the young man from Holguín begs for medications to relieve his pain and for “real medical follow-up” to help him have “a more normal life.” His mother, Maricela Quiala Hernández has implored on previous occasions that his son be granted a humanitarian visa, since he no longer has hope that he will receive the necessary treatment in Cuba.
“Right now I can barely move with help. I don’t have medical assistance or real follow-up, because the family doctor comes and sees me, but that’s it. I can’t leave the house, I can’t go to the hospital because it has to be in an ambulance. I can’t even sit in the wheelchair and I have to do everything in bed,” Pupo Quiala himself told CubaNet.
Some of the medications that the young person needs are immunoglobulin, prednisone, chlordiazepoxide, calcium, hydrochlorothiazide, methotrexate, diclofenac, tramadol (and its variation of paracetamol/tramadol). However, the disease has progressed so much that painkillers barely relieve his pain.
“I want help, but I really don’t know what to ask for because here in Cuba I no longer have hope for anything. In order not to go through what I am going through today, the disease had a follow-up that I have never had, and a very strong medication because no one can endure this,” he expressed.
Despite his suffering, the 36-year-old is grateful for the help of friends who live in other countries, who have tried to provide him with the drugs he needs most and that he cannot get on the Island.
Although Pupo Quiala started showing symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis at age 11, it wasn’t until he was 13 that he received the diagnosis. It is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the joints and their tissues, causing severe pain and stiffness. The young man reports that his condition worsened over time due to poor medical practices and the poor care he received in Mayarí, the municipality of Holguín where he lived.
“I have gotten worse. I can’t move my head because of the pain in my neck, my hands have become more deformed, the pain has multiplied by a thousand. Sometimes I listen to people who complain of pain but I see that they stop and walk… I would like to have even that pain that they complain about, but that allows them to walk and go about their daily lives,” lamented Pupo Quiala.
“I haven’t known what a second without pain is for 23 years, it is always there 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he added.
However, the young man does not give up, because he knows people with the same condition who lead a very different life from him, in other countries.
“They work and do everything, and maybe they have some kind of pain, but 24 hours like me? I can’t resign myself to suffering without attention, without hope, without anything,” he finally lamented.
Héctor resided in the Saetía Channel, adjacent to an exclusive key on the northern coast of Holguín, a tourist destination that has always been reserved for the vacations of Raúl Castro and other high officials of the regime.
From that place he continued to denounce his medical situation and demand from the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) the medicines and treatments necessary to treat his illness, before moving to Havana in search of a better quality of life.
