U.S. Government’s Cruelty Bashes Cuba’s Public Health System

The U.S. economic blockade on Cuba has caused a very negative impact in critical sectors of the island’s economy and particularly in the public health system.

As a result of such genocidal policy, mounted on a diabolical mechanism intending to bring our people to their knees through hunger and sickness, the Cuban people have been deprived of medicines, equipment and disposable materials affecting all the country's public health facilities. 

The Cuban State has had to overcome such hurdles to boost initiatives involving cutting-edge technology to provide top-notch services in surgery, nephrology and genetics.

Given that the Government of that northern nation has often denied permission to buy USA-made components or has just prolonged unnecessarily the red tape to get them, the lack of stability in supplying these resources to the island nation has dramatically affected medical services.

The cruelty of the Yankee empire knows no bounds; and sadder still, it is that the people are the worst affected. Recent analysis has revealed that, harassments to medicine providing companies making business with Cuba have increased over the last year.  

U.S. corporation GIBCO manufactures Amniomax, which is used for in vitro culture of human amniotic fluid cells to detect congenital malformations in over 38-year-of-age pregnant women, and Barack Obama’s administration punished subsidiaries of this company based in third countries for selling Cuba this drug.

However, as part of the invaluable mother-and-child program, a string of trials to diagnose Sickle cell trait, Down syndrome and other hereditary malformations are guaranteed free of charge for women with high genetic risks in Cuba.

It similarly happens with current-generation antiviral drugs like Ganciclovir, antimicrobials and cytostatic drugs that are not made in the country and are used to treat cancer. Yet, all patients have received these drugs or alternative ones.

In spite of these unjust measures, the results exhibited by Cuba in surgery, oncology, ophthalmology and nephrology as well as in intensive care services, where myriads of people have been saved from death are undeniable.

In addition, we have to mention the rehabilitation program intended to those who suffer from disorders of the central nervous system like hemiplegia, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Convinced that the U.S. blockade will not defeat us, Cuban doctors and scientists are immersed in producing more vaccines and monoclonal antibodies as a proof of the country’s great endeavour in strengthening its free health services and taking them to other nations abroad.(Alex López Almaguer/ Radio Cadena Agramonte.)