HAVANA, Cuba.- Suffering from some type of disability, be it motor, visual or auditory, has always been painful for anyone who has to endure such an annoyance for life. And not only for the affected person, but also for the family, who must observe with resignation the limitations that stand in the way of any of their loved ones who present any of these impediments.
However, in this irrational environment that we live in Cuba, which seems even surreal, having a disabled person in the family can provide more advantages than suffering or setbacks. This is so because disabled people —or disabled people, as they are also called— have preference to enter stores in this country, and thus avoid the inhuman queues, of hours and hours, that the rest of the citizens make to acquire a package of chicken, two or three packages of hash, or two packages of hot dogs, or a bottle of oil.
It is a kind of saving safe-conduct, which begins when the disabled person -or the one who intends to classify as such- manages his card before the organization that corresponds to him according to his disability. Card without which the person in charge of the queue will not allow you access to the store. These organizations are the National Association of the Deaf of Cuba (ANSOC), the National Association of the Blind (ANCI), and the Cuban Association of the Physically-Motor Limited (ACLIFIM).
And on this point lies one of the biggest controversies that arise around these associations, when people who do not qualify to belong to them, especially elderly people who have ailments typical of age, but not physical disabilities, insist on obtaining the card that saves them from the slaughter of the queues.
For example, the president of ACLIFIM in the Havana municipality of Playa, in statements to the newspaper Tribune of Havana, pointed out that “every day, and at any time, people come sent by doctors, officials from ONAT, the bank, pharmacies…, also by the organizers of queues in stores, so that we can process their membership card” . And that, according to the official, is not possible.
Likewise, there are many people who collect medical certificates with the most dissimilar pathologies, with a view to presenting them at ACLIFIM to obtain the disabled person’s card, or who take these certificates directly to the queues in the hope that they will take pity on them and allow prioritized access to the store.
Not long ago we were walking down a Havana street and we came across a store where the chicken had just arrived, and a gigantic queue was already beginning to form. A lady took out her cell phone and told her addressee: “Fulanita, the chicken has arrived. Tell so-and-so to come as soon as possible, and not to forget to bring the paper they gave him in Mazorra”. That is to say, prove his mentally disturbed condition to try to avoid the queue.
According to the direction of ACLIFIM, just in the province of Havana, just over 11,680 people have the card of that association. And so far this year 2022, a total of 460 applicants already have the card that certifies them as disabled or physically disabled.
We have no doubt that, with the corruption that we feel in Cuban society, the black market will offer in the immediate future, at astronomical prices, membership cards for ACLIFIM, ANCI and ANSOC.
OPINION ARTICLE
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