All that the Cuban government has done, however, is run a decades-long propaganda campaign to convince credulous or dishonest people that its health-care system is worth emulating. These people believe — or pretend to believe for ideological reasons — that a dictatorship can crush a country’s economy and spirit, yet still deliver exemplary medical care.""Cuban health care works only for the select few: if you are a high-ranking member of the party or the military and have access to top-notch clinics; or a health-care tourist who can pay in foreign currency at a special facility catering to foreigners; or a documentarian who can be relied upon to produce a lickspittle film whitewashing the system.
Ordinary Cubans experience the wasteland of the real system. Even aspirin and Pepto-Bismol can be rare, and there’s a black market for them. According to a report in the Canadian National Post: “Hospitals are falling apart, surgeons lack basic supplies and must reuse latex gloves. Patients must buy their sutures on the black market and provide bed sheets and food for extended hospital stays.”
How could it be any different when Cuba embarked on a campaign of economic self-sabotage with the revolution of 1959? It went from third in per capita food consumption in Latin America to near the bottom, according to a State Department report. Per capita consumption of basic foodstuffs like cereals and meat actually has declined from the 1950s. There are fewer cars (true of no other country in the hemisphere), and development of electrical power has trailed every other Latin American country except Haiti.
But the routine medical care, we’re supposed to believe, is superb. The statistic frequently cited for this proposition is that Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America. Put aside that the reflexively dishonest Cuban government is the ultimate source for these figures. Cuba had the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America prior to the revolution and has lost ground to other countries around the world since. It also has an appallingly high abortion rate, meaning most problem pregnancies are pre-emptively ended.
Other countries in Latin America have made advances in health without Cuba’s vicious suppression of human rights (which, no doubt, contributes to the island having the highest suicide rate in Latin America). The way public health works in Cuba was nicely illustrated by the case of Dr. Desi Mendoza Rivero, who complained of an outbreak of dengue fever that the regime preferred to ignore in the late 1990s, and was jailed for his trouble.
As is always the case with Cuba, anything that’s wrong is blamed on the United States. If there is a shortage of medicine, well, that’s because of the U.S. embargo. But the United States is not the only country in the world that sells drugs. Cuba could buy them from Europe or elsewhere, and the U.S. embargo makes an exception for medicines.
The only reason to fantasize about Cuban health care is to stick a finger in the eye of the Yanquis. For the likes of Michael Moore, the true glory of Cuba is less its health care than the fact that it is an enemy of the United States. That’s why romanticizing Cuban medicine isn’t just folly, but itself qualifies as a kind of sickness."
Sicko-- Michael Moore's sickness-- By Rich Lowry
nationalreview.com
"My parents are really old and suffer from heart problems, and they need to take an Aspirin a day, but even I have difficulty finding it," says Estela (not her real name), one of the pharmacists who works at a small shop off the main square, where school-children in maroon and beige uniforms sit on park benches sharing snacks. Still, the residents of Moron are luckier than most Cubans because many of them work in the nearby resorts, where they often receive foreign medications as tips."
Apartheid in Cuba---II. Medical apartheid.
cubaverdad.net
"Rugby man stuck in an 'awful' Cuban hospital" (Won't be mentioned in Moore's Sicko")--"There was blood and urine in the wards and graffiti everywhere. If someone had sent your loved one into a hospital like that, you would get them out there and then. It was awful - seeing him linked up to tubes in a hospital you wouldn't put your dog in."
Medicina Cubana
Por: Prof. Julián Antonio Mone Borrego.*
Baracoa, Cuba- March 30, 2007.
The general condition of hospitals that provide medical services strictly for the Cuban people are deplorable.
SANTA CLARA
Santa Clara's Provincial Hospital has been invaded by a plague of cockroaches that contaminate utensils, foods and medical material. The poor elaboration of foods, along with the unsanitary conditions heaped up the critical conditions of this hospital....... MORE
Medical waste left untreated in open dump SANTA CLARA, Cuba - January 9 (Alain Ramón Gómez Ramos, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org)
- Medical waste from health facilities in Sagua la Grande is being dumped alongside common refuse at the municipal dump just outside the city, a human rights activist said here.
It is not known how long the practice has been going on.
According to Abelardo Sosa, the hospital, clinics and doctors' offices in the city don't have means of burning the contaminated waste, so it ends up mixed with ordinary waste in the dump.
The practice, which violates national and international standards according to Sosa, imperils the 12 people employed at the dump, as well as many others who routinely rummage through the refuse looking for recyclable materials and anything that could potentially be of some use.
The medical waste, said Sosa, is carted daily to the dump in horse-drawn carriages operated by the department of municipal services.
http://www.netforcuba.org/News-EN/2006/Jan/News909.htm
Links to read up on to admonish Moore's liberal followers that walk among us.
