Problems are piling up for the Cuban authorities and not even the former jewel in the crown is there to give joy. The latest disappointment has been the deaths from hemorrhagic dengue of a child under seven in Cienfuegos and a pregnant doctor. In addition, another minor died in Havana, while waiting unsuccessfully for an ambulance.
These deaths represent the paradigm of the bad situation that affects the island with the disease and that forced the Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, to give a press conference this Thursday.
The Paquito González Cueto Pediatric Hospital, in Cienfuegos, published a letter defending of what they consider an attack against their professionals and a use of the death of a minor by the Miami press. Paola Patricia Rodríguez, seven years old, died on Wednesday in this center after several days in intensive care and the news circulated a day later amid criticism of the institution for failing to save the little girl.
“Our institution from the night of yesterday, July 13, began to receive attacks from social networks on doctors, pediatric intensivists, nurses and other workers,” states the letter, released by the institution’s Facebook account. “Let those who try to hurt and distort the facts know that there is no greater pain for a pediatric institution than the physical departure of a girl or a boy. The pain intensifies because we are characterized by attachment to our patients,” she continues.
Hundreds of people sympathized with the text, although some comments indicate that the problem is not with the hospital workers, but rather with the insufficiency of human and material resources.
The letter ends by asking for an end to the manipulation and use of other people’s pain, and claims the importance that patients have for health professionals. Hundreds of people expressed their solidarity with the text, although some comments indicate that the problem is not with the hospital workers, but with the insufficiency of the human and material resources with which they have to help patients, who are getting smaller and smaller due to the profound crisis in the country.
The death is added to that of Mercy Hernández, a Cuban doctor whose death spread on social networks by a friend who shared images of her funeral. The cause of the death of the young woman has not been revealed by this relative, who just said that her pregnancy was complicated, but a user from the province assured that she suffered from hemorrhagic dengue.
The epidemiological situation in this sense is worrying, as confirmed by the data indicated by Portal Miranda this Thursday. In the first six months of the year, 3,036 cases of dengue were detected on the Island in 12 provinces, and the forecast is not good. The minister was clear about it: “We are not in the worst moment.”
In the coming months, the heat and humidity will serve as the ideal breeding ground for the spread of the disease, according to the ministry’s forecast. In addition, the incidence rate has grown by 42% compared to the previous period, for which the head of Health called for extreme precautions.
Last week, Madelaine Riveranational director of Surveillance and Anti-Vector Control of the Ministry of Public Health, placed the increase so far this year at 21.7%, so the speed at which the situation is worsening is clear.
“Cuba has experience in managing dengue and the health system is prepared to assimilate the number of cases; however, what we do not do now can complicate the epidemiological scenario in the coming months, which are the most complex for this transmitted disease. by the mosquito Aedes aegypti”, said Portal Miranda, although he recognized that the situation is problematic and that the limitations of the basic list of medicines seriously affect the problem.
The authorities have been recommending for days that the mask habit not be abandoned in crowded places
Several people confirmed to 14ymedio the saturation of at least two hospitals in Havana, Calixto García and Manuel Fajardo, where materials of all kinds are missing, including reagents. In Santiago de Cuba there is also a lack of bags for transfusions, according to sources in this newspaper.
He did not mention, however, the lack of fumigation reported by the residents of the capital, one of the areas most affected by dengue along with Holguín, Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. Although the arrival of the anti-mosquito brigades is always a cause of inconvenience for citizens, who have to leave their homes for the operation, the effect of their absence is being felt.
But the problems do not end with dengue. Portal Miranda warned this Thursday of the rise that is taking place in the data on covid-19 infections. The disease has already reached its subvariant BA.5, derived from ómicron, and the whole world is noticing its effects. The strain is transmitted even faster than its “mother” and, although it does not seem to have an impact on hospitalizations and deaths, countries are aware of the effect it may have since the more infected there are, the more chances of cases with complications.
“Although it is more transmissible, so far it has not impacted health services or intensive care,” said Portal. However, the authorities have been recommending for days that the mask habit not be abandoned in crowded places.
The death of another minor in Cotorro, Havana, while waiting unsuccessfully for an ambulance, puts the finishing touch to the situation. Maritza Barrios, mother of Andy Aguero Barrios, asked for help through his Facebook profile due to the lack of transportation to take his son, autistic and blind, to the hospital to receive an urgent transfusion. Although it is unknown what ailed the boy, his mother desperately said that she needed an ambulance that was impossible to locate. A few hours later, according to the mother herself, the child died.
The user Deyvis Lawton, who identified himself as a nurse in the ambulance that finally came to pick up Andy, defended himself by explaining that they were carrying another seriously ill patient in the vehicle, whom he obviously could not leave to go in search of the boy, and criticized to the authorities when concluding: “That happens when there is an ambulance, like mine, for four municipalities and 200 patrols for each municipality”.
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