Madrid/It is not usual for a complaint on social networks in Cuba to have, first, direct official response and, second, consequences. The employee of the Provincial Psychiatric Hospital Dr. Luis San Juan Pérez, of Santa Clara, who appears in a video broadcast on social networks hitting a patient has been fired.
Announced, this same Tuesday, the own General Directorate of Health of Villa Clara In a statement, in which he explains that “in response” to the images published in networks five days ago, an investigation was carried out by an “interdisciplinary commission.” This determined that the person in charge was a worker identified with the acronym “HBC”, hired on July 1 of last year as an emergency service assistant.
The man, says the text, “recognized his participation in this repudiable act, contrary to the ethical and humanistic values that support our health system.” The events occurred, they also specify, 35 days ago.
Because of its action, it has not only been “definitively” separated from the health center, but “sent to the judicial organs”
Due to its action, it has not only been “definitively separated” from the health center, but “sent to judicial bodies for relevant legal actions.” In their statement, the authorities express their “most sincere solidarity with the victim and her family, deeply regretting the suffering caused” and promise to work “without rest to prevent such painful facts from repeating.”
Similarly, they condemn “firmly the inhuman attitude of whom he recorded the video, which not only witnessed the aggression without trying to stop it, but also chose to spread it in social networks instead of denouncing it immediately, showing an alarming lack of compassion and responsibility.”
They refer to the video posted in X by the user Rubén Carrillo On April 10. In the images, without sound, the health employee is observed by hitting a patient. Carrillo wrote: “This occurs very frequently in the psychiatric of Santa Clara, Cuba. The assistant hits him repeating that he is calm,” clarifying: “I eliminated the audio to cover the voice of my source.”
This situation is not unique or new in Cuba. In Holguin, a schizophrenic patient refers to this newspaper, calls the local psychiatric hospital “that jail where they torture me.”
In 2011, a total of 13 employees of the Havana Psychiatric Hospital They were sentenced to sentences between 5 and 15 years in prison for the death of 26 patients in a cold wave that hit the capital in January 2010. Several of them had samples of anemia and malnutrition.
During that trial, widespread by the official press with an exemplary intention, it was proven that the workers – including high positions of the center – had been stealing foods, blankets and coats that were destined for patients, and that in some pavilions there were up to windows.
