"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)
Cuba today traffics its doctors abroad for the profit of the dictatorship while Cubans in the island do without. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic there are shortages in Cuba, and a regime that was slow to respond in a constructive manner leading to protests, and public calls for action. Meanwhile PBS is broadcasting Castro propaganda on Cuba's "vaunted" healthcare system in a program to air Wednesday titled "Cuba's Cancer Hope".
The hard reality is that Cuba's glory days of "cutting-edge" medicine pre-date the Castro regime.
Carlos J. Finlay, pioneering Cuban doctor
Carlos Juan Finlay, a Cuban epidemiologist, discovered that yellow fever was transmitted from infected to healthy humans by a mosquito vector. Dr. Finlay identified that the carrier of yellow fever was the mosquito Culex fasciatus, today known as Aedes aegypti. Finlay's career began under the Spanish colony and continued into the early years of the Cuban Republic. Dr. Finlay was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1906.
However, he was not the only great Cuban doctor to become internationally renowned.
I know this first hand because as a child my pediatrician in Little Havana, in a modest office near Flagler Street, was Dr. Agustin Walfredo Castellanos, his patients used to call him "El Chino Castellanos". He was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959 and 1960 by Colombia and Ecuador respectively.
Dr. Agustin Walfredo Castellanos
Dr. Castellanos described "the first practical method of angiocardiography, with which he studied several congenital malformations of the heart. Also, he designed the first automatic angiocardiographic injection device. He also pioneered the method of retrograde injection of contrast material into the aorta which was mainly used to diagnose patent ductus arteriosus."
Reference to Castellanos (1938) and his co-workers in Cuba breakthrough in Angiocardiography
Angiocardiography, according to Merriam Webster is "the radiographic visualization of the heart and its blood vessels after injection of a radiopaque substance.
Dr. Castellanos and his colleagues published the first important paper on the clinical applications of intravenous angiocardiography in the Archivos de la Sociedad de Estudios Clinicos in 1937. Cuban medicine prior to 1959 was not just groundbreaking in basic research, but also in public health.
Cuban doctors in the 1930s provided the breakthrough that made above images possible.
Professor James W. McGuire and Laura B. Frankel in their paper published in the Latin American Research Review, “Mortality Decline in Cuba, 1900-1959: Patterns, Comparisons, and Causes” found that “Cuba's progress relative to other Latin American countries at reducing infant mortality was even greater from 1900 to 1960 than from 1960 to 1995. During the earlier period, Cuba led all Latin American countries for which data are available at raising life expectancy and reducing infant mortality. From 1960 to 1995, by contrast, it came in fourth and fifth respectively.”
Rodolfo J. Stusser, M.D. in his November 2013 paper, "Cuba’s Long Tradition of Health Care Policies: Implications for Cuba and Other Nations," documented that "in 1958 Cuba had 6,000 physicians, 3,624 pharmacists, 2,260 pharmacies,
about 500 laboratories, and 60 drug manufacturers, handling 40,000
different products for 6 million inhabitants."
Numbers don't lie, although the Castro regime would like to disappear them.
Thankfully, Glenn Garvin writing at Reason Magazine has burst one of the propaganda bubbles of the Castro dictatorship and its fictitious "lung cancer cure" reporting that "CIMAvax is far from a "cutting-edge" medicine. The truth is that it barely works at all. As Cuba's Cancer Hope admits in a single throw-away line, "Cuban clinical trials show that it extends life three to five months on average." The five-year survival rate for its users is about 15 percent, roughly the same as that for patients treated with approved U.S. cancer therapies. American oncologists hoot in frustration at patients who want help getting to Cuba to obtain CIMAvax. Says one, quoted in a recent report by Public Radio International: "Without seeing new stats, it's not that impressive… . I am not too worried about people not being able to go to Cuba."
Earlier this month, Castro's Venezuelan henchman was promoting Cuba's "interferon" as a cure that saved "around 3,500 lives in China" declaring Cuba in the vanguard, Caribbean National Weekly called it the antidote for COVID-19, and Newsweek was calling it a "wonder drug." The reality is far more humble. Interferon Alpha-2B Recombinant (IFNrec) was jointly developed with China, but they did not pioneer the discovery of interferon. Interferon research, not surprisingly, was pioneered in Switzerland in the 1950s. Finally, interferon is not a cure but a possible treatment, with risky side effects that in the late stages of the illness can cause more harm than good. The communist regimes in Cuba and in China are profiting off of the desperation of people around the world caught up in a pandemic that spread out of control because Beijing covered it up for weeks. Sadly, many have fallen for this propaganda.
One last point on Cuban medicine, post-1959 who are the great doctors that have made strides in medicine that have led them to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine? We know that Cuban medical missions have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on three occasions, but President Donald Trump has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. One need not be a doctor to get that nomination.
The more important question is how many Cuban doctors, educated and trained under the Castro regime, have been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine?
3 patients who died in Cuba of exposure at a hospital facility due to neglect in 2010
There are many myths that the Castro regime has successfully propagated over the years. The international community deeply believes one of the biggest and most dangerous whoppers, that Cuba’s healthcare system under the current communist system is a success that turned the island into a medical super power. This fabricated fiction needs to be addressed to save lives both inside and outside of the island at this critical time.
These are some of the facts that Havana has spent decades covering up.
The healthcare system that existed in Cuba prior to 1959 was superior to what came after. Professor James W. McGuire and Laura B. Frankel in their paper published in the Latin American Research Review, “Mortality Decline in Cuba, 1900-1959: Patterns, Comparisons, and Causes” found that “Cuba's progress relative to other Latin American countries at reducing infant mortality was even greater from 1900 to 1960 than from 1960 to 1995. During the earlier period, Cuba led all Latin American countries for which data are available at raising life expectancy and reducing infant mortality. From 1960 to 1995, by contrast, it came in fourth and fifth respectively.”
Healthcare in Cuba is not free, nor are the medical missions sent around the world, and at times can be expensive, and unforgiving. Tourists visiting Cuba who have become ill found that they were presented expensive bills for medical care received.
In the summer of 2013 Sheila Dumbleton, age 57, fell ill six days into a birthday trip to Cuba was hospitalized before passing away. “Sheila was left to die because we had no money to pay for treatment, it’s as simple as that. If she had fallen ill in this country she would still be here,” said her husband Ray Dumbleton, who is from the United Kingdom, adding, “As soon as the hospital knew we couldn’t pay, they just left her to deteriorate. All the doctors kept saying to us was ‘payment, payment’ but we simply didn’t have that sort of money to give them.” He wasn’t even allowed to bid farewell to his wife when she died. To add insult to injury, the Cuban hospital wouldn’t release the body, and threatened the husband with prison if he didn’t come up with the $26,700 bill.
Ray and Sheila Dumbleton
Cuba's health tourism effort has roused bitter reproach from
the nation's critics, who accuse the Castro regime of
creating an apartheid system of health care, in which foreigners - and
Cuban party elite - get top-class service while average Cubans must make
do with dilapidated facilities, outdated equipment and meagerly stocked
pharmacies.These greatly contrast with Cuban elite hospitals promoted by "health tourism" enterprises such as SERVIMED.
Hilda Molina, one of Cuba 's most noted scientists, founder and a
former director of Havana 's International Center for Neurological
Restoration broke with the regime and resigned both from her high-level
position there and as a member of Cuba 's National Assembly to protest
the system of medical apartheid.
In a long document smuggled out of
Cuba after her resignation, Dr. Molina describes a campaign by Cuba to
present itself as a "medical superpower" attractive to foreign patients
looking for bargain-basement health care. Instead, she writes, these
patients have often found themselves subject to substandard, sometimes
fraudulent medical care: "The lack of adequate professional
qualifications, the absence of medical ethics, and the drive toward
financial enrichment characterize Cuba 's medical system and often yield
unfortunate results."
According to Dr. Molina, "Foreign patients are
routinely inadequately or falsely informed about their medical
conditions to increase their medical bills or to hide the fact that Cuba
often advertises medical services it is unable to provide."
Cubans that express disagreement with their political leaders, and government policy have been known to be punished by having medical care denied.
Human rights defender Sebastián Arcos Bergnes, in 1992 was charged with "enemy propaganda" and "inciting rebellion," he was
sentenced to four years and eight months in prison. Sebastian was transferred to Ariza
Prison in Cienfuegos Province,
more than 130 miles from Havana, where he was imprisoned alongside
dangerous criminals and systematically denied medical attention. In 1993 the regime offered Sebastian a deal: He would be released
immediately if he only agreed to leave the island for good. Sebastian
rejected the deal, choosing
prison in Cuba over freedom in exile.
Following an international campaign that included his designation as an
Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and a request by France Libertés, the organization founded by former French first lady Danielle Mitterrand,
Sebastian Arcos was released in 1995. A few weeks after his release,
Arcos was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in the rectum, for which he had previously been denied medical care
in prison. After a Cuban doctor was fired from his post for diagnosing
Arcos, he traveled to Miami for further care. Sebastián Arcos Bergnes died in Miami on December 22, 1997
Sirley Avila Leon.
Sirley was a true believer who grew up in the revolution and was a
member of a local municipal assembly. She believed the claims that free
education was a right for all Cubans. This belief left her an invalid
and nearly led to a violent death. She lobbied and agitated for a school to be opened in her municipality
so that the children there would not have to trek 5.6 miles to go to
class and then trek the same distance back to get home.
Sirley Avila Leon
On May 24, 2015, Sirley Ávila León was the victim of a brutal machete attack
that cost her her left hand and also left her right upper arm
nearly severed and knees slashed, leaving her crippled. She was denied
adequate medical care and was told quietly by medical doctors that if
she wanted to get better she would need to leave Cuba. The regime had
been embarrassed by a campaign she organized to keep a school open. She
arrived in Miami on March 8, 2016 unable to bend her legs, or use her
remaining had.Thanks to a team of medical doctors treating her, by
September 2016 Sirley had regained the use of her hand, and was able to walk short distances.
Lady in White Xiomara Cruz was arrested on April 16, 2016 for speaking out during a human rights demonstration in Havana's Central park. She was placed on parole in January of 2018. She was re-arrested in mid-September 2018 under the charge of being "threatening." On September 19, 2018 she was tried and sentenced to one year and four months in prison. She was sent to a prison 400 kilometers from her home. This was an added hardship for her family to visit her, and keep an eye on her well being.
Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda before and during her jailing.
On August 8, 2019 she was transferred to intensive care. Cuban dissident Angel Juan Moya posted videos of interviews from August 6th and August 7th
with doctors at the hospital. Family members complained that they
are receiving differing diagnoses and her situation continues to worsen.
Xiomara was in intensive care and doctors were saying that it could be
lung cancer. A doctor refused to update the family saying: "that he did
not want to see those people." Near death she arrived in Miami on January 21, 2020 on a humanitarian visa, and was immediately placed in intensive care.
Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda arrived in Miami on January 21, 2020
This practice of rationing care based on political fidelity has also been practiced overseas. Nicholas Casey’s article “‘It Is Unspeakable’: How Maduro Used Cuban Doctors to Coerce Venezuela Voters” published in The New York Times on March 17, 2019 interviewed Cuban doctors haunted by what the Castro regime required them to do in their overseas assignments.
Dr. Yansnier Arias “had been sent to Venezuela by the Cuban government, one of thousands of doctors deployed to shore up ties between the two allies and alleviate Venezuela’s collapsing medical system. But with President Nicolás Maduro’s re-election on the line, not everyone was allowed to be treated, Dr. Arias said. A 65-year-old patient with heart failure entered his clinic — and urgently needed oxygen, he said. The tanks sat in another room at the ready, he recalled. But he said his Cuban and Venezuelan superiors told him to use the oxygen as a political weapon instead: Not for medical emergencies that day, but to be doled out closer to the election, part of a national strategy to compel patients to vote for the government.”
Dr. Yansnier Arias spoke out on abuses on Cuban medical missions
Casey reported that “16 members of Cuba’s medical missions to Venezuela — a signature element of relations between the two countries — described a system of deliberate political manipulation in which their services were wielded to secure votes for the governing Socialist Party, often through coercion. Many tactics were used, they said, from simple reminders to vote for the government to denying treatment for opposition supporters with life-threatening ailments.”
Not all the Cuban personnel, dressed up as doctors to treat patients around the world, are in fact doctors. Raúl Manuel, a Cuban doctor now in Brazil described in the same New York Times article how in 2015 on Election Day “he was sent to an opposition stronghold. When early returns showed the opposition ahead, a gun battle broke out. … After the shootout, Dr. Manuel said he returned to the clinic, shaken, only to learn that government officials from other departments — including the sports and culture agencies — were going out, too, posing as doctors. ‘We, the doctors, were asked to give our extra robes to people,’ he said. The fake doctors were even giving out medicines, without knowing what they were or how to use them.”
But it was not only for the votes. Sending doctors to work abroad in other countries is Cuba’s biggest export bringing in $11 billion per year to the dictatorship. The Cuban government signs secret agreements with these countries and in the case of Qatar, keeps 90% of Cuban doctors’ wages.
Cuba’s Communist dictatorship, like their Chinese counterparts, covered up epidemics endangering the lives of many. This was most recently revealed in 2019 when Yale School of Public Health’s Nathan Grubaugh and his colleagues estimated that the total cases of Zika in Cuba in 2017 alone would have been 5,700, and added that the “2017 Zika outbreak in Cuba was similar in size to the known 2016 outbreaks in countries with similar population sizes.”
Duane Gubler at the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore on January 8, 2019 said “Cuba has a history of not reporting epidemics until they become obvious.” Doctors and journalists who had spoken out warning about past outbreaks of dengue in 1997 and cholera in 2012 have been punished and some were jailed.
Elderly Cubans have borne the brunt of revolutionary responses to crises. Between 1982 and 1993 during the “special period” according to a letter published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) on July 29, 2008 in Cuba the death rate among the elderly increased by 20% from 1982 to 1993.”
In 1997 a Cuban doctor was silenced for warning about a deadly dengue
epidemic. Dr Desi Mendoza Rivero, married with four children at the
time, was arrested on June 25, 1997. On November 28, 1997 he was sentenced to eight years in prison for "enemy propaganda." Amnesty International declared Dr. Mendoza Rivero a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his freedom. He was released on
November 20, 1998 due to health reasons following the visit of the
Spanish Foreign Minister, under the condition that he leave Cuba for
exile in Spain.
First official report to the World Health Organization of the dengue outbreak was six months after initial identification made by the jailed and later forcibly exiled physician. Mendoza Rivero's reports were eventually confirmed. This episode would have a chilling effect on other doctors coming forward.
News of a cholera outbreak in Manzanillo, in the east of the island, broke in El Nuevo Herald
on June 29, 2012 thanks to the reporting of an independent reporter in
the island. Calixto Martinez, the independent Cuban journalist who broke
the story was jailed. The state controlled media did not confirm the outbreak until days later on July 3, 2012. The BBC reported on July 7, 2012 that a patient had been diagnosed with cholera in Havana. The Cuban government stated that it had it under control and on August 28, 2012 said the outbreak was over.
They are doing it again now with the Coronavirus outbreak
Havanatour, tourist agency owned and run by the Cuban military, continued to pitch Cuba as a travel destination and posted tweets in mid-March claiming that Coronavirus does not replicate at high temperatures, that the island is now 29-32 degrees Celsius, and that it was safe to travel there.
"Cuba - No restrictions on entering the country. Screening on arrival, if presenting symptoms you may be taken to health facilities in Havana."
This at a time when Cuba is suffering from shortages of soap, and toiletries for Cubans in the island, and conditions in hospitals that do not meet minimum hygiene standards.
Translation:“Cuba is bathed in the rays of the sun all year and
taking pertinent measures we have greater strengths to face COVID-19.
From the #Caribbean it’s #Cubaisasafedestination. Come visit with
#Havanatur.”
Cuban dictatorship officials confirmed that a 61 year old Italian tourist had died of SARS-CoV-2 on March 18, 2020 and a 45 year old Russian tourist with diabetes died of SARS-CoV-2 on March 25, 2020. The true scope of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Cuba is still not known but at a minimum numbers in the tens of thousands, and people are dying. On March 24, 2020 the doors were officially closed to international tourism amidst rising dissent in the population. Mark Fitzpatrick, an American tourist, has gone missing. According to Cuban official media there are 9,000 tourists stuck in Cuba, and being called to quarantine.
Without human rights, healthcare is compromised. Sherri L. Porcelain, an adjunct professor who taught Global Public Health in World
Affairs at the University of Miami for more than 30 years, wrote an important analysis titled "U.S. & Cuba: A Question of Indifference?" Dr. Porcelain's analysis revealed that Cuban healthcare system is not the panacea that it is billed as:
"Investment in the health of people includes protecting human rights.
This means allowing the health community to speak out and not to be
jailed for releasing information about a dengue epidemic considered a
state secret, or not sharing timely data on a cholera outbreak until
laboratory confirmation of travelers returning from Cuba arrive home
with a surprising diagnosis. This causes me to reflect upon my personal
interviews where the remaining vigor of public health actions in Cuba
exists to fight vector and water borne diseases. Sadly, however, health
professionals are directed to euphemistically use the vague terms of
febrile illness in place of dengue and gastrointestinal upset for
cholera, in contradiction to promoting public health transparency."
Cubans today are outraged that officials waited until March 24th to take substantive measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, and they fear that the dictatorship is preparing to cover up a humanitarian disaster at home while exporting their doctors abroad.
A Cuban doctor in Havana exposes poor conditions in a Cuban hospital. Why is it that in 2013 this reality still takes many by surprise?
One of the myths of the Castro dictatorship that refuse to be brought to an end by the harsh reality is that of the Cuban health care system. The infrastructure has been steadily decaying for decades, even when heavily subsidized for decades by first the Soviet Union and then until today by Venezuela.
One just needs to scratch the surface and ask themselves if the health care system in Cuba is so great:
Why is their a two tiered system for elites and those with tourist dollars that is top notch and a substandard one for most Cubans?
Why do international organizations ignore this reality and accept the doctored statistics provided by the dictatorship? Why do they not listen first hand to those brave souls willing to talk about the actual state of prenatal care?
At the end of the day, the divorce between the dismal reality of the Cuban healthcare system and the myth erected by the dictatorship and maintained by many others raises other troubling questions.
The current cholera outbreak in Cuba offers an opportunity to see how the Cuban public health system operates. Unfortunately, the well being of Cubans is not the first item on the agenda. This is demonstrated in the regime's response. News of the outbreak in Manzanillo, in the east of the island, broke in El Nuevo Herald on June 29, 2012 thanks to the reporting of the outlawed independent press in the island. The state controlled media did not confirm the outbreak until days later on July 3, 2012. The BBC reported on July 7, 2012 that a patient had been diagnosed with Cholera in Havana. The dictatorship states that it has it under control.
The regime in Cuba has both an incredibly effective propaganda and state security apparatus however what it does not have is an effective healthcare system for all Cubans. As masters of propaganda the Castro regime can produce statistics and spin a story of wonderful medical care that is the envy of the world. Filmmakers like Michael Moore have repackaged the propaganda and spread it globally. With their state security apparatus the regime in Cuba is able to terrorize many into going along with the lie.
The claim that there have been no other cholera outbreaks should be met with skepticism. In 1997 when a Dengue epidemic broke out in Cuba the dictatorship tried to cover it up. When a courageous doctor spoke out he was locked up on June 25, 1997 and later sentenced to 8 years in prison. Amnesty International recognized Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero as a prisoner of conscience. He was released from prison under condition he go into exile in December of 1998. The regime eventually had to recognize that there had been a dengue epidemic. However, if there were a cholera outbreak, not an epidemic, that the dictatorship could contain they would cover it up because it would go against their "revolutionary" narrative of progress.
For example in January of 2010 news got out that 26 mental patients had died in Havana at the Psychiatric Hospital, known as Mazorra, from negligence and neglect.
With the regime gaining free publicity with the highly publicized trips of Hugo Chavez for cancer treatment to Cuba, in June of 2011 a Cuban human rights defender raised important questions to Chavez about the quality of care over twitter such as "What would he say of Cuban health care if he were a widower of one of the women who died in the Palma Soriano maternity hospital?"
Another element of concern is the medical mistreatment of dissidents:
The October 14, 2011 death of Laura Pollán under mysterious circumstances which Cuban physician and human rights defender, Oscar Elias Biscet described as "death by purposeful neglect."
Since November 22, 2011 Yris Perez Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera has been suffering from a large hematoma to the back of her head and state security along with medical doctors have denied her adequate health care.
There is a health care system which is decent for regime elites in good favor and tourists with hard currency and another one for everyday Cubans that is a disaster. With regards to the public health system the priority is the good image of the dictatorship not the well being of Cubans.
This is not a pattern that is unique to Cuba, their close ally North Korea also has a dysfunctional healthcare system.
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