Miami, United States. – The General Directorate of Health of Villa Clara confirmed this April 15 That a worker at the Provincial Psychiatric Hospital “Dr. Luis San Juan Pérez” was responsible for the aggression to a patient widespread in social networks on April 10.
The author of the fact, identified as HBC, was definitely separated from the work center and his case has been sent to the judicial bodies for relevant legal actions, according to an official note released on Facebook by the provincial director of Health of Villa Clara, Dr. Juan José Pulido López.
“When interviewed, [el trabajador] He recognized his participation in this repudiable act, contrary to the ethical and humanistic values that support our health system, ”says the note.
The incident took place approximately 35 days before its publication in networks, and was captured in video by a third party, which did not intervene to stop the aggression. “We firmly condemn 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 on social networks instead of denouncing it immediately,” says the note.
The imagesshared by the user Rubén Carrillo on the social network X (formerly Twitter), show a worker hitting a patient in crisis. “This occurs very frequently in the psychiatric of Santa Clara. The assistant hits him repeating he is calm, ”Carrillo denounced in his publication.
The video, which went viral in a few hours, generated a broad repudiation among Internet users and put the conditions of Cuban psychiatric institutions again in the center of the debate, as well as the lack of effective mechanisms to supervise and protect patients.
This is not an isolated complaint. In January 2025, the mother of a patient of the “Luis Ramírez López” psychiatric hospital in Guantanamo denounced the lack of basic medical equipment, such as electroconvulsive therapy, out of service for months. According to his testimony, this lack resulted in episodes of violence between patients and in aggressive responses by personnel. Despite showing images of injuries, their repeated requests for attention to the Ministry of Public Health were not attended.
These facts are added with a long history of complaints about abuse and abandonment in psychiatric centers in Cuba. The most remembered case It is still that of death in 2010 of 26 patients in the Havana psychiatric hospital “Commander Dr. Eduardo Bernabé Ordaz Ducungé”, better known as Mob, for hypothermia, malnutrition and abandonment.
Independent and relatives of patients have warned for years about the infrahuman conditions, the lack of hygiene, physical abuse and institutional negligence that seriously affect the population admitted to these centers.
