Mailen Díaz Almaguer, the only survivor among 113 passengers in the Cubana de Aviación accident in 2018 in Havana, has denounced the extreme situation in which she lives due to the lack of medical supplies on the island.
In a video broadcast on Facebook, the young woman, who is currently 23 years old, explains that her spinal cord injury forces her to urinate through an intermittent catheter that must be placed approximately every four or five hours and for this she needs, In addition to the probe and lubricant to introduce it, gloves to avoid infections. None of these materials are available and at this time she only has two days of gloves left. She also consumes a daily nitrofurantoin tablet, an antibiotic that is currently in short supply.
“I have reached a point where I feel compelled to denounce the things that are happening,” she argues in the video, in which her husband, Mario Jesús Rodríguez, intervenes at length, who, visibly upset, accuses the president of Cuba himself. “You are a hypocrite, Díaz-Canel,” snaps the young man, who wonders why every year the country’s top leader sends a birthday greeting to her wife but does nothing for her.
“You are a hypocrite, Díaz-Canel,” says the young man, who wonders why every year the country’s top leader sends a birthday greeting to his wife but does nothing for her
Díaz Almaguer regrets that at the time everything possible was done to save her after the accident but now, when the risk has passed, no one cares about offering her quality of life. After the accident, which occurred on May 18, 2018, the young woman suffers from quadriplegia and is forced to undergo five hours of physiotherapy in which, she denounces, she cannot be relaxed and calm, because she is anguished thinking about the calls she must make to try to get gloves, probes and lubricant, in addition to the pills you need to avoid infections derived from the multiple catheterizations that must be performed daily.
Díaz Almaguer explains that many things have been reproached for him through social networks or false news that have appeared since, after the accident, he became a public face. One of them is his home, located in Siboney. The couple regrets that it has been said that the Government gave her a university career or a house that, according to her version, she bought; and that she has been criticized for the area in which she is located, near the beach.
“They said it was because it was in an elitist area, but it was done as a matter of proximity,” says Díaz Almaguer, who wanted to be as close as possible to the International Center for Neurological Restoration (Ciren), where she has been admitted until Last May 10, 2021 after passing through the Calixto García hospital, where she was treated after the plane crash.
The young woman also reveals things that were unknown until now, such as that she was robbed in the ambulance itself that took her from the accident site to the hospital. As she explains, during the journey, and because she was poorly positioned on her stretcher, she slipped and the paramedics saw her personal belongings, including a necklace and some rings, which they took from her.
The relatives, the story continues, did not say anything at that time, since they were worried about her health and not about material things, but she, when she was recovered, decided to denounce that injustice. One of her rings was an engagement ring and another was her wedding ring, since she was married to one of those who died in the accident.
According to her version, at the trial, to which she did not attend because she was still hospitalized, the defendants admitted to having kept her things and even publicly asked what value those objects could have for her so that she was claiming them.
In addition, they told her that she should leave in writing the purpose to which she intended to allocate the amount, she affirms, in the midst of her husband’s indignation, who remembers that only in electricity or powdered milk does the amount go.
The nonsense continued when he went to collect the compensation from the bank, valued at 36,000 pesos. Díaz Almaguer denounces that, despite the fact that the currency had already lost purchasing power, when he went to pick it up, the bank workers snapped at him that these amounts were not usually paid in one go, and that he would have obtained it all together “for being her” . In addition, they told her that she should leave in writing the purpose to which she intended to allocate the amount, she affirms, in the midst of the indignation of her husband, who remembers that only in electricity or powdered milk is the amount already gone. .
Díaz Almaguer insists that he cannot understand why he put so much effort into saving her only to end up like this now, looking for such insignificant materials but without which he could die from an infection.
Her husband insists: “How is it possible that a person who gets on a plane and wakes up in intensive care, after everything they did for her in the first few months, now says that they don’t have the medicines. Now, a deputy minister tells him or a deputy minister who doesn’t have gloves, that the entire country doesn’t have. That’s not justification.”
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