Cuba's Much Lauded Health Care System No Longer Has Even Aspirin to Give Us
Posted: 06/ 5/11 06:46 PM ET
It's been almost two years since I've been seen at a hospital. The last
time was in that November of beatings and kidnapping when my lower back
was in very bad shape. I learned a hard lesson on that occasion: given
the choice between the Hippocratic oath and ideological fidelity, many
physicians prefer to violate the privacy of their patients -- often
compared to the secrets of the confessional -- rather than to oppose,
with the truth, the State that employs them. The examples of this
pouring forth on official television in recent months have strengthened
my lack of confidence in the Cuban public health system. So I am healing
myself with plants that grow on my balcony, I exercise every day to
avoid getting sick, and I've even bought myself a Vademécum -- a
Physician's Desk Reference -- should I need to self-prescribe at some
point. But despite my "medical revolt," I haven't failed to observe and
investigate the growing deterioration of this sector.
Among the recent hospital cuts, the most notable have to do with
resources for diagnostics. The doctors receive greatly reduced
allocations for X-rays, ultrasounds and MRIs which they must distribute
among their patients. Anecdotes about fractures that are set without
first being X-rayed, or abdominal pains that become complicated because
they can't do a scan, are so common we're no longer surprised. Such a
situation is also vulnerable to patronage, where those who can offer a
gift, or surreptitiously pay, obtain better medical care than do others.
The cheese given to the nurse and the indispensable hand soap that many
offer the dentist noticeably accelerate treatment and complement the
undervalued salaries of those medical professionals.
A thermometer is an object long-missing from the shelves of pharmacies
operating in local currency, while the hard currency stores have the
most modern digital models. Getting a pair of glasses to alleviate
near-sightedness can take months through subsidized State channels, or
twenty-four hours at Miramar Optical where you pay in convertible pesos.
Nor do the bodies who staff the hospitals escape these contrasts: we can
consult the most competent neurosurgeon in the entire Caribbean region,
but he doesn't have even an aspirin to give us. These are the
chiaroscuros that make us sick, and exhaust patients, their families,
and the medical personnel themselves. And that leave us feeling
defrauded by a conquest -- long brandished before our faces -- that has
crumbled, and they won't even let us complain about it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/cubas-much-lauded-health-_b_871434.html
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