A doctor at the Boris Luis Santa Coloma sugar factory in Madruga (Cuba) in 2021.Ramon Espinosa (AP)
On a piece of paper that looks like a page from an exercise book, Dr. Goar Valeriano González Maydelis Solano on the impossibility of operating on her son. The Holguín Children’s Hospital does not have the necessary resources, he says, and Jordan Daniel Montero Solano, 13 years old and barely weighing 28 kilos, will still not know what it means to eat orally. “He is awaiting surgery,” the surgeon wrote in blue pen. “Due to the situation in the country, this was not done,” he clarified. Then Dr. Goar affixed his signature and an official stamp from the Cuban Ministry of Health (Minsap), as if to note that the lined page of the exercise book actually contained his medical history.
Several times a day, Solano places a syringe at one end of the tube that Jordan has connected to his stomach. The syringes must be reused indefinitely and washed with hot water. The tube must be changed every 21 days, but Solano extends the deadline to two months. During this time he collects 600 pesos (almost two dollars at the exchange rate) to buy another one on the informal market. The child can only eat liquid food: milk, corn starch, yogurt, natural juices, compotes or purees from vegetables or meat, whatever his mother can get. But Jordan’s absorption of food is getting worse and worse. He suffers from esophageal atresia, a congenital condition in which part of the esophagus, which connects the stomach to the mouth, has not developed properly. “His bones are already degenerating, which is affecting his motor skills,” complains Solano. “He also suffers from chronic malnutrition due to the diet he has been exposed to over his 13 years of life.”
To the countless letters that the mother sent to the Cuban government offices, they only replied that her “approach had been transferred to the Ministry of Health.” In other of his letters he received replies of the form “We are pleased to hear from you”, “Your matter has been received and you may proceed further”, correspondence which speaks less about the health of a child and more about the inefficiency of one Country.
The paper with which the doctor informed Maydelis Solano about the impossibility of operating on her son. With kind approval
When he was little, doctors couldn’t operate on him until he gained weight. As he gained weight, they were no longer able to care for him due to the coronavirus crisis. Now that Jordan urgently needs to enter the operating room, there are no more supplies. There are also no gauze bandages, the medication Evermin, insulin for his diabetes and a range of medical supplies he needs.
Jordan can hardly get out of his fours. The mother describes him as someone who is very lonely. He doesn’t play with other children. He does not go to school but receives lessons from a teacher who comes to his home. Instead, she listens to music, paints, sews and plays with her mother’s phone. “I’m desperate, hurt, helpless,” Solano said in a virtual interview as her son remained in the room.
Jordan, who will only go out at lunchtime, is one of the five medical cases presented to the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on September 19 by Cuban activists who are demanding a statement from part of the UN organization on the situation, which many children experience who cannot be treated in hospitals on the island.
On October 12, a pharmacist shows moringa leaves that are sold as medicine in the almost empty pharmacy. Yander Zamora (EFE)
The country, which for years sold itself to the world as a medical power, has been mired in a health crisis for some time that has only worsened in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, just as other areas of the economy and life in general have deteriorated. Even as sick people, hospital patients or casual patients complained about the lack of medicines, the lack of hospital beds or the few ambulances, the government continued to claim that the island was a medical power.
What is happening now is that the problem is no longer just the lack of medicines in pharmacies, but also the lack of medical personnel in a country that has reported an exodus of more than 300,000 Cubans in just two years. According to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), around 12,000 doctors left Cuba’s public health system last year.
“They don’t say it, but there are no doctors in Cuba, they don’t want to admit it,” says Cuban doctor Lucio Enríquez Nodarse, a member of the Free Cuban Medical Guild, from Spain. “It is something more serious than anyone can imagine. “You will never say that the great Cuban medical school, the great power, has no doctors.”
A doctor in Havana looks at a map of the locations where there are Cuban medical missions before leaving for Mozambique in 2019. Ramon Espinosa (AP)
This year the Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz He could not help but acknowledge during a meeting that “the lack of foreign currency revenue” prevented the “acquisition of resources that ensure the health needs” of the population. This means the government can hardly take care of its patients.
In Cuba, with a population of 11.2 million inhabitants, of which 2.3 million are under 18 years old, the main causes of death among minors are malignant tumors, septicemia, accidents, congenital malformations, malformations and chromosomal abnormalities, according to the 2022 Health Statistics Yearbook. Although the total number of children neglected by the Cuban health system is unknown, complaints from parents complaining about this situation are accumulating daily on social networks.
Patients wait to see a doctor at the Leonor Perez Maternity Center in Havana in January this year. Ishmael Francisco (AP)
Yurislay Leyva Vasconcelo, mother of Yurisay Marín Leyva, calls for a better quality of life for her 22-year-old daughter, who was born with achondroplasia (bone growth disorder) and congenital glaucoma and also suffers from epilepsy. Hypertension and drug gastritis.
“He never has the medicine he needs, because if he doesn’t lack one, he lacks another, and nothing has reached the pharmacy for a year,” says the mother of Yurisay, one of the cases presented to Unicef became.
Geobel Damir Ortiz Ramírez, 9 years old and one of the cases uncovered by the UN organization, is diagnosed, among other things, with a plexiform neurofibroma in the right eye.
“My son’s condition is chronic and in Cuba there are no alternatives to surgery or treatment for him,” says his mother, Eliannis Ramírez Báez. “I even reported the situation to the Minsap. I’ve asked for help everywhere and no one bothers to do anything. “I am desperate, afraid, sometimes depressed, without strength because everything is free in this country.”
Another case is that of 8-year-old girl Yoahira Lía Zulueta Jorge, who, in addition to epilepsy, diabetes, asthma and a cleft palate, also suffers from infantile cerebral palsy (PCI). His mother has not only asked for help for her health, but also for the living conditions in which she remains: “The house is in danger of collapsing. I went to all the organizations and nothing, they just tell me there are no resources,” he says.
Yurisay Marín Leyva and Yoahira Lía Zulueta Jorge.Courtesy
The fifth of the cases, Cristofer Antonio Olivera, 4 years old, has been waiting for surgery almost his entire life. When he was 1 year old and just learning to walk, he accidentally drank caustic soda, permanently damaging his feeding tube. Doctors have told his grandmother that there are no supplies necessary for surgery, and in the meantime, Cristofer is being fed with a syringe and a tube connected to his stomach.
Cristofer’s caregivers, like the other parents mentioned above, are applying for a humanitarian visa that will allow them to leave the island and care for their children in other countries. Activist Avana de la Torre, who appeared at the Unicef office in Madrid, has since documented the cases of another 1,000 minors who are not being protected by the Cuban government.
“This is a cry from the mothers and grandmothers of vulnerable children in Cuba,” he says. “Probably nothing will change this situation except to expose the Cuban government and Unicef.”
Cristofer Antonio Olivera, 4 years old. With kind approval
In early October, Unicef Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Garry Conille, visited the island and met with President Miguel Díaz-Canel. After the tour, he said that “the current context in Cuba limits the development prospects of children and young people,” and reiterated his organization’s commitment to “help close the gaps to meet the needs of children, young people and the most vulnerable Families.” Unicef, which brought $2.5 million to the island from public donors last year, according to its 2022 annual report, has recognized that “some nutritional deficiencies” affecting minors remain in the country.
From its offices in Havana, Unicef has made no response to the activists’ claims and calls. In statements to EL PAÍS, Sendai Zea, communications specialist of this agency, said: “Unicef shares the concern about how the situation of children, young people and families has worsened due to the ongoing economic crisis in Cuba, hindering their access to the goods and Services necessary for their well-being and development.” Although Zea mentioned some of the programs and areas in which they work in Cuba, he avoided commenting on the cases of children whose lives are threatened due to a lack of care and medical personnel is in danger.
While the affected children and their families wait for answers, Dr. Enríquez Nodarse is not optimistic about the situation: “I don’t think anything will happen to these children, because what will save the children is not that people send them, give them a band-aid, a mattress or a wheelchair,” he says. “The only thing that will save the children is the end of the dictatorship. “There is no short-term solution.”
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