MIAMI, United States.- “I feel alone. Sometimes I have wanted to kill myself, but I don’t have the courage for it. If I could get out of this pothole… I have talked to myself and I say to myself: ‘Go ahead’,” confesses Ernesto Medina Ramírez, a homeless Cuban.
Medina Ramírez suffers from erysipelas in her right leg, an acute and febrile infectious disease of the skin, causing pain and itching that is caused by streptococci. “I can not walk. It came out for me at the moment. The bugs get into the lesion. (…) Every day the lesion is inside and inside and oozes”, says the 62-year-old man.
Despite the fact that erysipelas is a curable disease, Medina Ramírez’s condition has not been treated due to the shortage of medicines in Cuba.
He fears the worst: an amputation. “There is no type of medication. There is no antibiotic, there is no cream, there is nothing at all. If I could wash that there and apply a cream of any kind, the erysipelas would improve. But there is no. And everything is expensive, ”he lamented.
“If I don’t find the medicines I need now, there won’t be the ones I’ll need for the amputation either,” fears Medina Ramírez.
Around 142 medicines were in short supply in Cuba in the first half of 2022, according to reported at a press conference Tania Urquiza, vice president of the Business Group of the Biotechnological and Pharmaceutical Industries of Cuba (BioCubaFarma). This figure represents more than a third of the 369 basic medicines that make up the National Health System.
Medina Ramírez has gone to medical services without success. “First I went to a doctor’s office and then to a polyclinic and it was all for fun. I don’t know who to turn to. I don’t know what to do. I go crazy because of the constant pain, ”he complains.
The old man mistrusts and questions the free nature of the Cuban health system. “It is the same for the doctors here to sting my leg as not to give me anything. These people serve those who have money and I don’t. What I have is misery, hunger, misfortune. If I had money, I would have been treated and cured. And I don’t have a penny.”
The decline of the Family Doctor and Nurse Program, the dilapidated state of hospitals and even the very low salaries of health professionals are some of the negative indicators of the Cuban health system.
The deterioration of the Island’s Public Health system is so serious that even the regime acknowledged the crisis this month. “The lack of income in foreign currency prevents us from advancing in the search for solutions to the most complex problems that we face as a country, associated with food production, the energy crisis and the acquisition of resources that guarantee the health demands of our population” , said Manuel Marrero Cruz, the Cuban deputy prime minister in the assembly of balance of the sector.
Ernesto Medina Ramírez has no family. He is widower. “I am alone. This was the world that touched me. The only thing I have left is the faith of God,” he told CubaNet.
“I do not have a house. I sleep on a bench, I sleep wherever the night takes me. Where I feel safe, there I stay ”, she assures.
In such a situation, Medina Ramírez assures that he has found a “relief” in the drink. “What it gives me is from drinking alcohol,” he says and ipso facto rHe acknowledges that he is not on the right track: “He is hurting me. Alcohol doesn’t cure me, but it relieves the pain a little, not much. Alcohol is like an anesthetic. I take the drink looking for relief, but the alcohol is ‘eating’ me. That’s not how I heal.”
Despite knowing several professions, he confesses that the disease prevents him from working. “A month ago before I got sick with erysipelas I worked. He collected raw materials, sold on the street, did shoe work and fixed backpacks. I know several trades. But now I can’t do anything because the erysipelas won’t let me”.
Medina Ramírez assures that he has not received food or financial aid from the authorities. “They have not given me a pension, nor a ration book, nor any help. I’m dumped like a dog. Sometimes I eat, sometimes I don’t, ”he says.
On repeated occasions he has gone to the Government in vain, he says. “It’s for taste. I have gone to the Government and I have asked for help to get me admitted and they tell me that there is no gasoline. This country is bad. This is backwards. I don’t share the things that happen here”.
“I gave myself to the Lord,” he confesses. “He is the only doctor I have left. The only thing I ask of him is that he help me, nothing else ”.
