Holguin/On the shoulders of the Cuban patient weighs, not only, the Responsibility to achieve syringes and drugs before surgery. Now, more and more frequently, bringing a blood donation is an indispensable requirement to undergo an operation. In Holguin, those who do not have someone who, for friendship or money, donates their blood, are forced to postpone surgical processes.
“Please, an Ab+ blood donor is urgently needed at the Camagüey Provincial Hospital. If someone could help, thank you,” reads a Facebook group where residents meet in the Holguinera capital and where imported clothes are sold that a robbery is reported. These supplications alternate with other publications that warn that the selfless donor will be rewarded with a payment that can be between 5,000 and 7,000 pesos.
Rafael, a volunteer with dozens of donations in his history, has seen people reach the Provincial Blood Bank practically pleading with a donation, a few hours before a relative should enter a room. This Monday, the scene was repeated in front of his eyes when he decided to help a young neighbor who worsened on his motorcycle last weekend.
It is already customary in Holguín that, when a person is going to operate, he has to deliver a blood donation “
“The treatment by the staff was friendly, of excellence, with educational explanations and talks,” says Rafael, who immediately adds the other face of the currency. “But it is already a custom in Holguín that, when a person is going to operate, he has to deliver a blood donation. There was a case of a man who had to operate tomorrow. And if he did not take a donor, they did not operate it.”
Although officially it is not stipulated that the patient should take care of managing the donation, the truth is that throughout the country the practice of endorsing the interested party that responsibility has been extended. The obligation to have a document that certifies the donation has spurred the informal market of donations to the detriment of the altruistic gesture. “There are people who do not have anyone to give their blood but do not have the money to pay it,” says Rafael.
For years, the National System of Blood Banks achieved high levels of self -supply thanks to a combination of health education, social pressure by the Defense Committees of the Revolution (CDR), as well as work and student centers. But that stability began to deteriorate after the special period and has been aggravated even more during the last decade.
The index with which the Pan American Health Organization measures efficiency in that sector is one donation for every 20 inhabitants
A recent article in the Spanish media related to the Cuban regime Rebellion He addressed the theme with a good dose of harangue. Its author reviewed the resounding drop in the volume of voluntary donations, comparing the 585,000 that were recorded in 2003, and which descended to 415,000 in 2014. But according to the data of 2023, the situation was worse, reaching only 254,845 donations. The index with which the Pan American Health Organization measures efficiency in that sector is one donation for every 20 inhabitants, so that Cuba (with 0.44) does not reach the middle of the objective. The article urged “less apologetics” and “more playing doors”, “even to guarantee something as elementary as a good snack after those who donate.”
Nor do the conditions of the blood banks beaten by the crisis help much. A few years ago, the “strong snacks” they gave in these places were legendary after extraction, to help resuscitate the donor. Of those legendary sandwiches with ham and cheese, sometimes accompanied by shake or sometimes of flavored milk, little remains.
This Monday, after seeing a bag of about 450 milliliters of blood, Rafael was given a small ration of poor food quality. “They gave a bit strange bread, with a kind of raw butifarra, a glass of water soda and a glass of milk with a semi -middle cookie,” he details. When he left the place, still somewhat weak about the effort, the man who desperately sought a donation was still there, waiting to find someone to help him.
During the time Rafael spent in the Blood Bank “few people arrived.” Most were “people who were going to donate direct patients.” Some, obviously, did it as a business because they barely knew the name of the patient that should reflect the donation ballot. In Cuba, blood needs are no longer solved with harangues.
